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THE 


Water- Babies 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


y 

BY 

Charles^ tvingsley 


VIGNETTE EDITION. WITH ONE HUNDRED 
NEW ILLUSTRA TIONS 

BY 

Frederick C. Gordon 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

MDCCCXCI 


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Copyright, 1891 

Bv FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 


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A Water Fairy. 




















MY YOUNGEST SON 


GRENVILLE ARTHUR 

AND 

TO ALL OTHER GOOD LLTTLE BOYS 


COME HEAD ME MY RIDDLE, EACH GOOD Lit ILE MAN, 
IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK CAN. 


I heard a thousand blended notes, 

While in a grove I sate reclined; 

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 
Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 

To her fair works did Nature link 

The human soul that through me ran; 
And much it grieved my heart to think, 
What man has made of man.” 


Wordsworth. 



THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAPTER I. 


Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, 
and his name was Tom. 'That is a short name, and you 
have heard it before, so you will not have much trouble in 
remembering it. He lived in a great town in the North 
country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, 
and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to 
spend. He could not read nor write, and did not care 
to do either; and he never washed himself, for there 
was no water up the court where he lived. He had 
never been taught to say his prayers. He never 
had heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which 
you never have heard, and which it would have been 
well if he had never heard. He cried half his time, and 
laughed the other half. He cried when he had to climb 
the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw ; 
and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every 
day in the week; and when his master beat him, which 
he did every day in the week; and when he had not 
enough to eat, which happened every day in the week 
likewise. And he laughed the other half of the day, 



2 


The Water Babies. 


when he was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or 
playing leap-frog over the posts, or bowling stones at the 
horses’ legs as they trotted by, which last was excellent 
fun, when there was a wall at hand behind which to hide. 
As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and being 
beaten, he took all that for the way of the world, like the 
rain and snow and thunder, and stood manfully with his 
back to it till it was over, as his old donkey did to a 
hailstorm ; and then shook his ears and was as jolly as 
ever; and thought of the fine times coming, when he 
would be a man, and a master sweep, and sit in the public- 
house with a quart of beer and a long pipe, and play cards 
for silver money, and wear velveteens and ankle-jacks, and 
keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, and carry her 
puppies in his pocket, just like a man. And he would 
have apprentices, one, two, three, if he could. How he 
would bully them, and knock them about, just as his 
master did to him; and make them carry home the soot 
sacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with a 
pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole, like a 
king at the head of his army. Yes, there were good 
times coming; and, when his master let him have a pull 
at the leavings of his beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the 
whole town. 

One day a smart little groom rode into the court where 
Tom lived. Tom was just hiding behind a wall, to heave 
half a brick at his horse’s legs, as is the custom of that 
country when they welcome strangers; but the groom 
saw him, and halloed to him to know where Mr. Grimes, 
the* chimney-sweep, lived. Now, Mr. Grimes was Tom’s 
own master, and Tom was a good man of business, and 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 3 


always civil to customers, so he put the half-brick down 
quietly behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders. 

Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir John 
Harthover’s, at the Place, for his old chimney-sweep was 
gone to prison, and the chimneys wanted sweeping. 
And so he rode away, not giving Tom time to ask what 
the sweep had gone to prison for, which was a matter of 
interest to Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice 


“ Sit in the Public House with a Quart of Beer and a Long Pipe.” 

himself. Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and 
clean, with his drab gaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, 
snow-white tie with a smart pin in it, and clean, round, 
ruddy face, that Tom was offended and disgusted at his 
appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow, who 
o-ave himself airs because he wore smart clothes, and 







4 


The Water-Babies. 


other people paid for them ; and went behind the wall to 
fetch the half-brick after all; but did not, remembering 
that he had come in the way of business, and was, as it 
were, under a flag of truce. 

His master was so delighted at his new customer that 
he knocked Tom down out of hand, and drank more beer 
that night than he usually did in two, in order to be sure 
of getting up in time next morning ; for the more a man’s 
head aches when he wakes, the more glad he is to turn 
out, and have a breath of fresh air. And, when he did 
get up at four the next morning, he knocked Tom down 
again, in order to teach him (as young gentlemen used to 
be taught at public schools) that he must be an extra good 
boy that day, as they were going to a very great house, 
and might make a very good thing of it, if they could but 
give satisfaction. 

And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have 
done and behaved his best, even without being knocked 
down. For, of all places upon earth, Harthover Place 
(which he had never seen) was the most wonderful, and, 
of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had seen, 
having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful. 

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for 
the rich North country; with a house so large that in the 
frame-breaking riots, which Tom could just remember, 
the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand soldiers to 
match, were easily housed therein; at least, so Tom 
believed ; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed 
to be monsters who were in the habit of eating children ; 
with miles of game-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and 
the collier lads poached at times, on which occasions 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


5 



Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like ; 
with a noble salmon-river, in which Mr. Grimes and his 
friends would have liked to poach ; but then they must 
have got into cold water, and that they did not like at all. 
In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a 
grand old man, whom even Mr. Grimes respected; for 
not only could he send Mr. 

Grimes to prison when he 
deserved it, as he did once 
or twice a week; not only 
did he own all the land 
about for miles ; not only 
was he a jolly, honest, 
sensible squire, as ever 

kept a pack of hounds, 
who would do what he 
thought right by his 

neighbors, as well as get 
what he thought right for 
himself ; but, what was 
more, he weighed full 
fifteen stone, was 

nobody knew how 

many inches round 
the chest, and could 
have thrashed Mr. u A Park Full of Deer.” 

Grimes himself in 

fair fight, which very few folk round there could do, and 
which, my dear little boy, would not have been right for him 
to do, as a great many things are not which one both can 
do, and would like very much to do. So Mr. Grimes 







6 


The Water-Babies. 


touched his hat to him when he rode through the town, 
and called him a “ buirdly awd chap,” and his young 
ladies “gradely lasses,” which are two high compliments 
in the North country ; and thought that that made up for 
his poaching Sir John’s pheasants; whereby you may 
perceive that Mr. Grimes had not been to a properly- 
inspected Government National School. 

Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o’clock on 
a midsummer morning. Some people get up then 
because they want to catch salmon ; and some because 
they want to climb Alps ; and a great many more because 
they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that three 
o’clock on a midsummer morning is the pleasantest time 
of all the twenty-four hours, and all the three hundred 
and sixty-five days; and why every one does not get up 
then, I never could tell, save that they are all determined 
to spoil their nerves and their complexions by doing all 
night what they might just as well do all day. But 
Tom, instead of going out to dinner at half-past eight at 
night, and to a ball at ten, and finishing off somewhere 
between twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his 
master went to the public-house, and slept like a dead 
pig; for which reason he was as piert as a game-cock 
(who always gets up early to wake the maids), and just 
ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were 
just ready to go to bed. 

So he and his master set out ; Grimes rode the donkey 
in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind; out 
of the court, and up the street, past the closed window- 
shutters, and the winking, weary policemen, and the roofs 
all shining gray in the gray dawn. 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


7 


They passed through the pitmen’s village, all shut up 
and silent now, and through the turnpike; and then they 
were out in the real country, and plodding along the 
black, dusty road, between black slag walls, with no 
sound but the groaning and thumping of the pit-engine 
in the next field. But soon the road grew white, and the 
walls likewise; and at the wall’s foot grew long grass and 
gay flowers, all drenched with dew; and instead of 
the groaning of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark 
saying his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird 
warbling in the sedges, as he had warbled all night long. 

All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast 
asleep; and, like many pretty people, she looked still 
prettier asleep then awake. The great elm-trees in the 
gold-green meadows were fast asleep above, and the cows 
fast asleep beneath them; nay, the few clouds which 
were about were fast asleep likewise, and so tired that 
they had lain down on the earth to rest, in long white 
flakes and bars, among the stems of the elm-trees, and 
along the tops of the alders by the stream, waiting for 
the sun to bid them rise and go about their day’s business 
in the clear blue overhead. 

On they went; and Tom looked, and looked, for he 
never had been so far into the country before; and 
longed to get over a gate, and pick buttercups, and look 
for birds’ nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes was a man 
of business, and would not have heard of that. 

Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging 
along with a bundle at her back. She had a gray shawl 
over her head, and a crimson madder petticoat; so you may 
be sure she came from Galway. She had neither shoes 











* 














A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


9 


nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and 
footsore ; but she was a very tall, handsome woman, 
with bright gray eyes, and heavy black hair hanging 
about her cheeks. And she took Mr. Grimes’ fancy so 
much, that when he came alongside he called out to her : 

“ This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. 
Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me ? ” 

But, perhaps, she did not admire Mr. Grimes’ look and 
voice ; for she answered quietly : 

“No, thank you: I’d sooner walk with your little lad 
here.” 

“ You may please yourself,” growled Grimes, and went 
on smoking. 

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and 
asked him where he lived, and what he knew, and all 
about himself, till Tom thought he had never met such a 
pleasant-spoken woman. And she asked him, at last, 
whether he said his prayers! and seemed sad when he 
told her that he knew no prayers to say. 

Then he asked her where she lived, and she said far 
away by the sea. And Tom asked her about the sea ; 
and she told him how it rolled and roared over the rocks 
in winter nights, and lay still in the bright summer 
days, for the children to bathe and play in it; and many 
a story more, till Tom longed to go and see the sea, and 
bathe in it likewise. 

At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring ; 
not such a spring as you see here, which soaks up out of 
a white gravel in the bog, among red fly-catchers and 
pink bottle-heath, and sweet white orchis ; nor such a 
one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up under 



IO 


The Water-Babies. 


the warm sandbank in the hollow lane, by the great tuft of 
lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at the bot¬ 
tom, day and night, all the year round ; not such a spring 
as either of those ; but a real North country limestone 
fountain, like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the 
old heathen fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves 
the hot summer’s day, while the shepherds peeped at 
them from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, 
at the foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, 
quelling, and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you 
could not tell where the water ended and the air began ; 
and ran away under the road, a stream large enough to 
turn a mill, among blue geranium, and golden globe¬ 
flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its 
tassels of snow. 

And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom 
looked too. Tom was wondering whether anything lived 
in that dark cave, and came out at night to fly in the 
meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all. With¬ 
out a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the 
low road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping 
his ugly head into the spring—and very dirty he made 
it. 

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The 
Irishwoman helped him, and showed him how to tie them 
up ; and a very pretty nosegay they had made between 
them. But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he 
stopped, quite astonished ; and when Grimes had finished, 
and began shaking his ears to dry them, he said : 

“Why, master, I never saw you do that before.” 

“ Nor will again, most likely. ’Twasn’t for cleanliness 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


i 



I did it, but for coolness. I’d be ashamed to want wash¬ 
ing every week or so, like any smutty collier lad.” 

“ I wish I might go and dip my head in,” 
said poor little Tom. “It must be as 
good as putting it under the town- 
pump ; and there is no beadle here 
to drive a chap away.” 

“ Thou come along,” said 
“ what dost want with 
thyself ? Thou did 


Grimes; 
washing 
not drink half 
last night, like 

“I don’t 
you,’’ said 
Tom, and ran 
down to the 
stream and be- 
g a n washing 
his face. 

Grimes was 
very sulky, 
because the 
woman preferred 
Tom’s company to 
his; so he dashed 
at him with horrid 
words, and tore 

him up from his knees, and began beating 
him. But Tom was accustomed to that, and 
got his head safe between Mr. Grimes’ legs, 
and kicked his shins with all his might. 


a gallon of beer 


me. 

care for 
naughty 


‘ Tom was Picking the 
Flowers as Fast as 
He Could.” 





12 


The Water-Babies. 


“ Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes ? ” 
cried the Irishwoman, over the wall. 

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name ; 
but all he answered was, “No, nor never was yet;” and 
went on beating Tom. 

“ True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of your¬ 
self, you would have gone over into Vendale long ago.” 

“ What do you know about Vendale ? ” shouted 
Grimes ; but he left off beating Tom. 

“ I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I know, 
for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, by night, 
two years ago, come Martinmas.” 

“You do?” shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, he 
climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman. Tom 
thought he was going to strike her; but she looked him 
too full and fierce in the face for that. 

“ Yes ; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly. 

“ You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said Grimes, 
after many bad words. 

“ Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and if you 
•strike that boy again, I can tell what I know.” 

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey with¬ 
out another word. 

“ Stop ! ” said the Irishwoman. “ I have one more 
word for you both-; for you will both see me again before 
all is over. Those that wish to be clean, clean they will 
be ; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. 
Remember.” 

And she turned away, and through a gate into the 
meadow. Grimes stood still a moment like a man who 
had been stunned. Then he rushed after her, shouting 




With very grand Iron Gates and Stone Gate-Posts. 






















i4 


The Water-Babies. 


“ You come back.” But when he got into the meadow, 
the woman was not there. 

Had she hidden away ? There was no place to hide 
in. But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for he was. 
as puzzled as Grimes himself at her disappearing so sud¬ 
denly ; but look where they would, she was not there. 

Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he was 
a little frightened; and, getting on his donkey, filled a 
fresh pipe, and smoked away, leaving Tom in peace. 

And now they had gone three miles and more, and 
came to Sir John’s lodge-gates. 

Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron gates 
and stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a most 
dreadful bogy, all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the 
crest which Sir John’s ancestors wore in the Wars of the 
Roses ; and very prudent men they were to wear it, for 
all their enemies must have run for their lives at the very 
first sight of them. 

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on the 
spot, and opened. 

“ I was told to expect thee,” he said. “Now thou’lt be 
so good as to keep to the main avenue, and not let me 
find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou comest back. 
I shall look sharp for one, I tell thee.” 

“ Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” quoth 
Grimes, and at that he laughed ; and the keeper laughed 
and said : 

“ If that’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with thee to 
the hall.” 

“ I think thou best had. It’s thy business to see after 
thy game, man, and not mine.” 





A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 1$ 

So the keeper went with them ; and, to Tom’s surprise, 
he and Grimes chatted together all the way quite pleas¬ 
antly. He did not know that a keeper is only a poacher 
turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned inside 
out. 

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile long, 
and between their stems Tom peeped trembling at the 
horns of the sleeping deer, which stood up among the 
ferns. Tom had never seen such enormous trees, and as 
he looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested on their 
heads. But he was puzzled very much by a strange 
murmuring noise, which followed them all the way. So 
much puzzled, that at last he took courage to ask the 
keeper what it was. 

He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he was 
horribly afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and he 
told him' that they were the bees about the lime flow¬ 
ers. 

“ What are bees ? ” asked Tom. 

“ What make honey.” 

“ What is honey ? ” asked Tom. 

“ Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes. 

“ Let the boy be,” said the keeper. “ He’s a civil 
young chap now, and that’s more than he’ll be long if he 
bides with thee.” 

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment. 

“ I wish I were a keeper,” said Tom, “ to live in such a 
beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have a 
real dog-whistle at my button, like you.” 

The keeper laughed; he was a kind-hearted fellow 
enough. 




i6 


The Water-Babies. 


“ Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy life’s 
safer than mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes ? ” 

And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men 
began talking quite low. Tom could hear, though, that it 
was about some poaching fight; and at last Grimes said 
surlily, “ Hast thou anything against me ? ” 

“ Not now.” 

“ Then don’t ask me any questions till thou hast, for I 
am a man of honor.” 

And at that they both laughed again, and thought it a 
very good joke. 

And by this time they were come up to the great iron 
gates in front of the house ; and Tom stared through 
them at the rhododendrons and azaleas, which were all in 
flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered how 
many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago it was 
built, and what was the man’s name that built it, and 
whether he got much money for his job ? 

These last were very difficult questions to answer. 
For Harthover had been built at ninety different times, 
and in nineteen different styles, and looked as if some¬ 
body had built a whole street of houses of every imagina¬ 
ble shape, and then stirred them together with a spoon. 

For the attics were Anglo-Saxon. 

The thirdfloor Norman. 

The second Cinque-cento. 

The first floor Elizabethan. 

The right wing Pure Doric. 

The centre Early English , with a huge portico copied 
from the Parthenon. 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


17 


The left wing pure Boeotian, which the country folk 
admired most of all because it was just like the new bar¬ 
racks in the town, only three times as big. 

The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at 
Rome. 

The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra. This 
was built by Sir John's great-great-great-uncle, who won, 
in Lord Clive's Indian Wars, plenty of money, plenty of 
wounds, and no more taste than his betters. 

The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta. 

The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton. 



ting upon 
John, year 
year, and trying 
him into spend- 


And the rest from nothing in heaven, or 
earth, or under the earth. 

So that Harthover House 
was a great puzzle to anti¬ 
quarians, and a thorough 
Naboth’s vineyard to 
critics, and architects, 
and all persons who 
like meddling with 
other men’s busi¬ 
ness, and spend¬ 
ing other men’s 
money. So 
they were 
all set- 
poor Sir 
after 
to talk 
ing a 


“ The Centre Early 
English, with a Huge Portico 
Copied from the Parthenon, 





The Water-Babies. 


18 


hundred thousand pounds or so, in building, to please 
them and not himself. But he always put them off, like a 
canny North-countryman as he was. One wanted him to 
build a Gothic house, but he said he was no Goth ; and 
another to build an Elizabethan, but he said he lived un¬ 
der good Queen Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and 
another was bold enough to tell him that his house was 
ugly, but he said he lived inside .it, and not outside ; and 
another, that there was no unity in it, but he said that that 
was just why he liked the old place. For he liked to see 
how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir Ralph, and Sir 
Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each after his 
own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his 
ancestors’ work than of disturbing their graves. For 
now the house looked like a real live house, that had a 
history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; 
and that it was only an upstart fellow r , who did not know 
who his own grandfather was, who would change it for some 
spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which 
looked as if it had been all spawned in a night, as mush¬ 
rooms are. From which you may collect (if you have wit 
enough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed, sound- 
hearted squire, and just the man to keep the country side 
in order, and show good sport with his hounds. 

But Tom and his master did'not go in through the 
great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, 
but round the back way, and a very long way round it 
was ; and into a little back-door, where the ash-boy let 
them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage the 
housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz dressing- 
gown, that Tom mistook her for My Lady herself, and 



A Fairy Tale for a La?id-Baby . 


J 9 


she gave Grimes solemn orders about “ You will take care 
of this, and take care of that, 5 '* as if he was going up the 
chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes listened, and said 
every now and then, under his voice, “You’ll mind that, 
you little beggar ? ” and Tom did mind, all at least that 
he could. And then the housekeeper turned them into a 
grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, 
and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; 
and so after a whimper or two, and a kick from his 
master, into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, 
while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the 
furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and 
chivalrous compliments, but met with very slight encour¬ 
agement in return. 

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he 
swept so many that he got quite tired, and puzzled too, 
for they were not like the town flues to which he was 
accustomed, but such as you would find—if you would 
only get up them and look, which perhaps you would 
not like to do—in old country-houses, large and crooked 
chimneys, which had been altered again and again, 
till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as Pro¬ 
fessor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly 
lost his way in them; not that he cared much for that, 
though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at 
home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, 
coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came 
down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the 
hearth rug in a room the like of which he had never seen 
before. 

Tom had never seen the like. He had never been in 





20 


The Water-Babies: 


gentlefolks’ rooms but when the carpets were all up, and 
the curtains down, and the furniture huddled together un¬ 
der a cloth, and the pictures covered with aprons and dust¬ 
ers ; and he had often enough wondered what the rooms 
were like when they were all ready for the quality to sit in. 
And now he saw, and he thought the sight very pretty. 

The room was all dressed in white,—white window-cur¬ 
tains, white bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls 
with just a few lines of pink here and there. The carpet 
was all over gay little flowers ; and the walls were hung 
with pictures in gilt frames, which amused Torfi very 
much. There were pictures of ladies and gentlemen, and 
pictures of horses and dogs. The horses he liked ; but 
the dogs he did not care for much, for there were no bull¬ 
dogs among them, not even a terrier. But the two pict¬ 
ures which took his fancy most were, one a man in long 
garments, with little children and their mothers round 
him, who was laying his hand upon the children’s heads. 
That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to hang in 
a lady’s room. For he could see that it was a lady’s room 
by the dresses which lay about. 

The other picture was that of a man nailed to a cross, 
which surprised Tom much. He fancied that he had 
seen something like it in a shop-window. But why was it 
there ? “ Poor man,” thought Tom, “ and he looks so 

kind and quiet. But why should the lady have such a sad 
picture as that in her room? Perhaps it was some kins¬ 
man of hers, who had been murdered by the savages in 
foreign parts, and she kept it there for a remembrance.” 
And Tom felt sad and awed, and turned to look at some¬ 
thing else. 




* 


» 












22 


The Water-Babies: 


The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, was a 
washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and 
brushes, and towels, and a large bath full of clean water 
—what a heap of things all for washing ! “ She must be 

a very dirty lady,” thought Tom, “ by my master’s rule, to 
want as much scrubbing as all that. But she must be 
very cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well after¬ 
wards, for I don’t see a speck about the room, not even 
on the very towels.” 

And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty 
lady, and held his breath with astonishment. 

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pil¬ 
low, lay the most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. 
Her cheeks were almost as white as the pillow, and her 
hair was like threads of gold spread all about over the bed. 
She might have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year or 
two older ; but Tom did not think of that. He thought 
only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered 
whether she was a real live person, or one of the wax 
dolls he had seen in the shops. But when he saw he*r 
breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive, and stood 
staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven. 

No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been 
dirty, thought Tom to himself. And then he thought, 
“And are all people like that when they are washed ? ” 
And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot 
off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. “ Cer¬ 
tainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew at ajl 
like her.” 

And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to 
him, a little ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2 3 


and grinning white teeth. He turned on it angrily. 
What did such a little black ape want in that sweet 
young lady’s room ? And behold, it was himself, reflected 
in a great mirror the like of which Tom had never seen 
before. 

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that 
he was dirty ; and burst into tears with shame and anger ; 
and turned to sneak up the chimney again and hide ; and 
upset the fender and threw the fire irons down, with a 
noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thousand 
mad dogs’ tails. 

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, seeing 
Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock. In rushed a 
stout old nurse from the next room, and seeing Tom like¬ 
wise, made up her mind that he had come to rob, plunder, 
destroy, and burn ; and dashed at him, as he lay over the 
fender, so fast that she caught him by the jacket. 

But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a police¬ 
man’s hands many a time, and out of them too, what is 
more; and he would have been ashamed to face his 
friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to be caught 
by an old woman ; so he doubled under the good lady’s 
arm, across the room, and out of the window in a mo¬ 
ment. 

He did not need to drop out, though he would have 
done so bravely enough. Nor even to let himself down a 
spout, which would have been an old game to him ; for 
once he got up by a spout to the church roof, he said to 
take jackdaws’ eggs, but the policeman said to steal 
lead; and, when he was seen on high, sat there till the 
sun got too hot, and came down by another spout, leaving 



24 


The Water-Babies . 


the policemen to go back to the stationhouse and eat 
their dinners. 

But all under the window spread a tree, with great 
leaves and sweet white flowers, almost as big as his head. 
It was magnolia, I suppose ; but Tom knew nothing 



“ Leaving the Old Nurse to Scream Murder and Fire at 
the Window.” 


about that, and cared less; for down the tree he went, 
like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and over the iron 
railings, and up the park towards the wood, leaving the 
old nurse to scream murder and fire at the window. 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2 5 


The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw 
down his scythe; caught his leg in it, and cut his shin 
open, whereby he kept his bed for a week; but in his 
hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom. 
The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between 
her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all the cream ; 
and yet she jumped up, and gave chase to Tom. A 
groom cleaning Sir John’s hack at the stables let him go 
loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five minutes; 
but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. Grimes upset 
the soot-sack in the new-gravelled yard, and spoilt it all 
utterly ; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. The old 
steward opened the park-gate in such a hurry, that he 
hung up his pony’s chin upon the spikes, and, for aught I 
know, it hangs there still; but he jumped off, and gave 
chase to Tom. The ploughman left his horses at the 
headland, and one jumped over the fence, and pulled the 
other into the ditch, plough and all; but he ran on, and 
gave chase to Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat 
out of a trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; 
but he jumped up, and ran after Tom ; and considering 
what he said, and how he looked, I should have been 
sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked 
out of his study window (for he was an early old gentle¬ 
man) and up at the nurse, and a marten dropped mud in 
his eye, so that he had at last to send for the doctor; and 
yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. The Irish¬ 
woman, too, was walking up to the house to beg,—she 
must have got round by some byway,'—but she threw 
away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom likewise. 
Only my Lady did not give chase ; for when she had put 



26 


The Water-Babies. 


her head out of the window, her night-wig fell into the 
garden, and she had to ring up her lady’s-maid, and send 
her down for it privately, which quite put her out of the 
running, so that she came in nowhere, and is consequently 
not placed. 

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place—not 
even when the fox was killed in the conservatory, among 
acres of broken glass, and tons of smashed flower-pots— 
such a noise, row, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, 
stramash, charivari, and total contempt of dignity, repose, 
and order, as that day, when Grimes, gardener, the 
groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the steward, the plough¬ 
man, the keeper, and the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, 



“Grimes, Gardener, the Groom, the Dairymaid, Sir John, the Steward 
the Ploughman, the Keeper, and the Irishwoman.’’ 







A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 27 


shouting “ Stop thief,” in the belief that Tom had at least 
a thousand pounds’ worth of jewels in his empty pockets ; 



"All Ran up the Park, Shouting ‘Stop Thief.’ ” 
and the very magpies and jays followed Tom up, screak¬ 
ing and screaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning 
to droop his brush. 

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with 
his little bare feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the 
forest. Alas for him ! there was no big father gorilla 
therein to take his part—to scratch out the gardener’s in¬ 
side with one paw, toss the dairymaid into a tree with 
another, and wrench off Sir John’s head with a third, 
while he cracked the keeper’s skull with his teeth as 
easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone. 

However, Tom did not remember ever having had a 
father; so he did not look for one, and expected to have 
to take care of himself; while as for running, he could 



28 


The Water-Babies. 


keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach, if 
there was the chance of a copper or a cigar-end, and turn 
coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten times following, 
which is more than you can do. Wherefore his pursuers 
found it very difficult to catch him ; and we will hope that 
they did not catch him at all. 

Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never 
been in a wood in his life ; but he was sharp enough to 
know that he might hide in a bush, or swarm up a tree, 
and, altogether, had more chance there than in the open. 
If he had not known that, he would have been foolisher 
than a mouse or a minnow. 

But when he got into the wood, he found it a very 
different sort of a place from what he had fancied. He 
pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons, and found 
himself at once caught in a trap. The boughs laid hold of 
his legs and arms, poked him in his face and his stomach, 
made him shut his eyes tight (though that was no great 
loss, for he could not see at best a yard before his nose) ; 
and when he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock- 
grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor little 
fingers afterwards most spitefully ; the birches birched 
him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton, 
and over the face too (which is not fair swishing, as all 
brave boys will agree) ; and the lawyers tripped him up 
and tore his shins as if they had sharks’ teeth—which law¬ 
yers are likely enough to have. 

“ I must get out of this,” thought Tom, “ or I shall stay 
here till somebody comes to help me—which is just what 
I don’t want.” 

But how to get out was the difficult matter. And in- 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


29 


deed I don’t think he would ever have got out at all, but 
have stayed there till the cock-robins covered him with 
leaves, if he had not suddenly run his head against a wall. 

Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, es¬ 
pecially if it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on edge, 
and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and 
makes you see all manner of beautiful stars. The stars 
are very beautiful, certainly ; but unfortunately they go 
in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second, and the 
pain which comes after them does not. And so Tom 
hurt his head ; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind 
that a penny. He guessed that over the wall the cover 
would end ; and up it he went, and over like a squirrel. 

And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, 
which the country folk call Harthover Fell—heather and 
bog and rock, stretching away and up, up to the very sky. 

Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow—as cunning as 
an old Exmoor stag.* Why not? Though he was but 
ten years old, he had lived longer than most stags, and 
had more wits to start with into the bargain. 

He knew as well as a stag that if he backed he might 
throw the hounds out. So the first thing he did when he 
was over the wall was to make the neatest double sharp to 
his right, and run along under the wall for nearly half a mile. 

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, 
and the gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairymaid, 
and all the hue-and-cry together, went on ahead half a 
mile in the very opposite direction, and inside the wall, 
leaving him a mile off on the outside; while Tom heard 
their shouts die away in the woods and chuckled to him¬ 
self merrily. 


I 




30 


The Water-Babies . 


At last he came to a clip in the land, and went to the 
bottom of it, and then he turned bravely away from the 
wall and up the moor; for he knew that he had put a 
hill between him and his enemies, and could go on with¬ 
out their seeing him. 


Y 



u Harthover Fell. 1 ’ 

But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen which 
way Tom went. She had kept ahead of every one the 
whole time ; and yet she neither walked nor ran. She 
went along quite smoothly and gracefully, while her feet 







A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


3 1 


twinkled past each other so fast that you could not see 
which was foremost ; till every one asked the other who 
the strange woman was ; and all agreed, for want of any¬ 
thing better to say, that she must be in league with Tom. 



“She neither Walked nor Ran.” 


But when she came to the plantation, they lost sight of 
her; and they could do no less. For she went quietly 
over the wall after Tom, and followed him wherever he 





32 


The Water-Babies. 


went. Sir John and the rest saw no more of her; and 
out of sight was out of mind. 

And now Tom was right away into the heather, over 
just such a moor as those in which you have been bred, 
except that there were rocks and stones lying about 
everywhere, and that, instead of the moor growing flat as 
he went upwards, it grew more and more broken and 
hilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog along 
well enough, and find time, too, to stare about at the 
strange place, which was like a new world to him. 

He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses 
marked on their backs, who sat in the middle of their 
webs, and when they saw Tom coming, shook them so 
fast that they became invisible. Then he saw lizards, 
brown and gray and green, and thought they were snakes, 
and would sting him ; but they were as much frightened 
as he, and shot away into the heath. And then, under a 
rock, he saw a pretty sight—a great brown, sharp-nosed 
creature, with a white tag to her brush, and round her 
four or five smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom 
ever saw. She lay on her back, rolling about, and 
stretching out her legs and head and tail in the bright 
sunshine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran round 
her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by the 
tail; and she seemed to enjoy it mightily. But one 
selfish little fellow stole away from the rest to a dead 
crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it was 
nearly as big as he was. Whereat all his little brothers 
set off after him in full cry, and saw Tom ; and then all 
ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen, and caught one up 
in her mouth, and the rest toddled after her, and into a 




A Fairy T'ale for a Land-Baby. 


33 


dark crack in the rocks; and there was an end of the 
show. 

And next he had a fright; for, as he scrambled up a 
sandy brow—whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick—something 
went off in his face, with a most horrid noise. He thought 
the ground had blown up, and the end of the world come. 

And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very 
tight) it was only an old cock-grouse, who had been 
washing himself in sand, like an Arab, for want of water ; 
and who, when Tom had all but trodden on him, jumped 
up with a noise like the express train, leaving his wife 
and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, 
and went off, screaming “ Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck— 
murder, thieves, fire—cur-u-uck-cock-kick—the end of the 
world is come—kick-kick-cock-kick.” He was always 
fancying that the end of the world was come, when any¬ 
thing happened which was farther off than the end of his 
own nose. But the end of the world was not come, any 
more than the twelfth of August was; though the old 
grouse-cock was quite certain of it. 

So the old grouse came back to his wife and family an 
hour afterwards, and said solemnly, “ Cock-cock-kick ; 
my dears, the end of the world is not quite come ; but I 
assure you it is coming the day after to-morrow—cock.” 
But his wife had heard that so often that she knew all 
about it, and a little more. And, besides, she was the 
mother of a family, and had seven little poults to wash 
and feed every day ; and that made her very practical, 
and a little sharp-tempered ; so all she answered was : 
“ Ivick-kick-kick—go and catch spiders, go and catch 
spiders—kick.” 



34 


The Water-Babies. 


So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why ; but he 
liked the great wide strange place, and the cool fresh 
bracing air. But he went more and more slowly as he 
got higher up the hill ; for now the ground grew very bad 
indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met 
great patches of flat limestone rock, just like ill-made 
pavements, with deep cracks between the stones and 
ledges, filled with ferns : so he had to hop from stone to 
stone, and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt 
his little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough 
ones ; but still he would go on and up, he could not tell 
why. 

What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking 
over the moor behind him, the very same Irishwoman 
who had taken his part upon the road ? But whether it 
was that he looked too little behind him, or whether it 
was that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and 
knolls, he never saw her, though she saw him. 

And now he began to get a little hungry, and very 
thirsty ; for he had run a long way, and the sun had risen 
high in heaven, and the rock was as hot as an oven, and 
the air danced reels over it, as it does over a limekiln, till 
everything round seemed quivering and melting jn the 
glare. 

But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still less 
to drink. 

The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries ; but 
they were only in flower yet, for it was June. And as for 
water, who can find that on the top of a limestone rock ? 
Now and then he passed by a deep dark swallow-hole, 
going down into the earth, as if it was the chimney of 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


35 


some dwarf’s house underground; and more than once, as 
he passed, he could hear water falling, trickling, tinkling, 
many many feet below. How he longed to get down to 
it, and cool his poor baked lips! But, brave little chim¬ 
ney-sweep as he was, he dared not climb down such 
chimneys as those. 

So he went on and on, till his head spun round with 
the heat, and he thought he heard church-bells ringing, a 
long way off. 

“ Ah ! ” he thought, “ where there is a church there will 
be houses and people ; and, perhaps, some one will give 
me a bit and a sup.” So he set off again, to look for the 
church ; for he was sure that he heard the bells quite plain. 

And in a minute more, when he looked round, he stopped 
again, and said, “ Why, what a big place the world is ! ” 

And so it was ; for, from the top of the mountain he 
could see—what could he not see ? 

Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the dark 
woods and the shining salmon river; and on his left, far 
below, was the town, and the smoking chimneys of the 
collieries ; and far, far away, the river widened to the 
shining sea ; and little white specks, which were ships, 
lay on its bosom. Before him lay, spread out like a map, 
great plains, and farms, and villages, amid dark knots of 
trees. They all seemed at his very fee't; but he had 
sense to see that they were long miles away. 

And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, 
till they faded away, blue into blue sky. But between him 
and those moors, and really at his very feet, lay something, 
to which, as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go, for 
that was the place for him. 









* 


I 


















•- . •' 


. 

» . 4 


§» 


■ 
























Why, what a Big Place the World is 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby.. 


37 


A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, and 
filled with wood; but through the wood, hundreds of feet 
below him, he could see a clear stream glance. Oh, if he 
could but get down .to that stream ! Then, by the stream, 
he saw the roof of a little cottage, and a little garden set 
out in squares and beds. And there was a tiny little red 
thing moving in the garden, no bigger than a fly. As 
Tom looked down, he saw that it was a woman in a red 
petticoat Ah ! perhaps she would give him something 
to eat. And there were the church-bells ringing again. 
Surely there must be a village down there. Well, no¬ 
body would know him, or what had happened at the Place. 
The news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John 
had set all the policemen in the county after him; and 
he could get down there in five minutes. 

Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having 
got thither; for he had come without knowing it, the best 
part often miles from Harthover; but he was wrong about 
getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was more 
than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below. 

However, down he went, like a brave little man as he 
was, though he was very footsore, and tired, and hungry, 
and thirsty; while the church-bells rang so loud, he began 
to think that they must be inside his own head, and the 
river chimed and tinkled far below ; and this was the song 
which it sang :— 




3 » 


The Water-Babies. 



Clear and cool, clear and cool, . 
By laughing shallow, and dream¬ 
ing pool; 

Cool and clear, cool and clear, 
By shining shingle, and foaming 
wear ; 


Under the crag where the ouzel 
sings, 

And the ivied wall where the church- 
bell rings, 

Undefiled, for the undefiled; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 







A Fairy r Fale for a Latui-Baby. 


39 



Dank and foul, dank and foul, 
By the smoky town in its murky 
cowl; 

Foul and dank, foul and dank, 
By wharf and sewer and slimy 
bank; 


Darker and darker the farther 7 go, 
Baser and baser the richer I grow; 
_; Who dare sport with the sin- 

defiled ? 

Shrink from me, turn from me, 
mother and child. 





The Water-Babies. 


Strong and free, strong and 
free, 

The floodgates are open, away to 
the sea, 

Free and strong, free and 
strong, 

Cleansing my streams as I hurry 
along, 

To the golden sands, and the leaping 
bar, 

And the taintless tide that awaits me afar. 

As I lose myself i?i the infinite main, 

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. 
Undefiled, for the undefiled ; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 


So Tom went down ; and all the while he never saw the 
Irishwoman going down behind him. 











“And is there care in heaven ? and is there love 
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base 
That may compasssion of their evils move ? 

There is:—else much more wretched were the case 
Of men than beasts: But oh ! the exceeding grace 
Of Highest God that loves His creatures so, 

And all His works with mercy doth embrace, 

That blessed Angels He sends to and fro, 

To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe ! ” 

Spenser. 






CHAPTER II. 


A mile off, and a thousand feet down. 

So Tom found it; though it seemed as if he could 
have chucked a pebble on to the back of the woman in 
the red petticoat who was weeding in the garden, or even 
across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the bottom of 
the valley was just one field broad, and on the other side 
ran the stream; and above it, gray crag, gray ijown, 
gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven. 

A quiet, silent, rich, happy place ; a narrow crack cut 
deep into the earth ; so deep, and so out of the way, that 
the bad bogies can hardly find it out. The name of the 
place is Vendale ; and if you want to see it for yourself, 
you must go up into the High Craven, and search from 
Bolland Forest north by Ingleborough to the Nine Stan¬ 
dards and Cross Fell ; and if you have not found it, you 
must turn south, and search the Lake Mountains, down 
to Scaw Fell and the sea ; and then, if you have not 
found it, you must go northward again by merry Carlisle, 
and search the Cheviots all across, from Annan Water 
to Berwick Law; and then, whether you have found 
Vendale or not, you will have found such a countrv, 


44 


The Water-Babies. 


and such a people, as. ought to make you proud of 
being a British boy. 

So Tom went to go down ; and first he went down 
three hundred feet of steep heather, mixed up with loose 
brown gritstone, as rough as a file ; which was not 
pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, stump, 
jump, down the steep. And still he thought he could 
throw a stone into the garden. 

Then he went down three hundred feet of limestone 
terraces, one below the other, as straight as if a carpenter 
had ruled them with his ruler and then cut them out with 
his chisel. There was no heath there, but— 

First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest 
flowers, rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, and 
all sorts of sweet herbs. 

Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers. 

Then bump down a one-foot step. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty yards, as 
steep as the house-roof, where he had to slide down on 
his dear little tail. 

Then another step of stone, ten feet high ; and there 
he had to stop himself, and crawl along the edge to find 
a crack ; for if he had rolled over, he would have rolled 
right into .the old woman’s garden, and frightened her 
out of her wits. 

Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full of 
green-stalked fern, such as hangs in the basket in the 
drawing-room, and had crawled down through it, with 
knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, there 
was another grass slope ? and another step, and so on, till 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


45 


—oh, dear me ! I wish it was all over ; and so did he. 
And yet he thought he could throw a stone into the old 
woman’s garden. 

At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs ; white- 
beam with its great silver-backed leaves, and mountain- 
ash, . and oak ; and below them cliff and crag, cliff and 
crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge ; 
while through the shrubs he could see the stream spark¬ 
ling, and hear it murmur on the white pebbles. He did 
not know that it was three hundred feet below. 

You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down : 
but Tom was not. He was a brave little chimney-sweep ; 
and when he found himself on the top of a high cliff, 
instead of sitting down and crying for his baba (though he 
never had had any baba to cry for), he said, “ Ah, this 
will just suit me,” though he was very tired ; and down 
he went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush and 
rush, as if he had been born a jolly little black ape, with 
four hands instead of two. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman com¬ 
ing down behind him. 

But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning 
sun on the fells had sucked him up ; but the damp heat 
of the woody crag sucked him up still more ; and the 
perspiration ran out of the ends of his fingers and toes, and 
washed him cleaner than he had been for a whole year. 
But, of course, he dirtied everything terribly as he went. 
There has been a great black smudge all down the crag 
ever since. And there have been more black beetles , in 
Yendale since than ever were known before; all, of 
course, owing to Tom’s having blacked the original 



4 6 


The Water Babies. 


papa of them all, just as he was setting off to be married, 
with a sky blue coat and scarlet leggings, as smart as a 
gardener’s dog with a polyanthus in his mouth. 

At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was not 
the bottom—as people usually find when they are coming- 
down a mountain. For at the foot of the crag were heaps 
and heaps of fallen limestone of every size from that of 
your head to that of a stage-wagon, with holes between 
them full of sweet heath-fern ; and before Tom got 
through them, he was out in the bright sunshine again ; 
and then he felt, once for all and suddenly, as people 
generally do, that he was b-e-a-t, beat. 

You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, 
little man, if you live such a life as a man ought to live, 
let you be as strong and healthy as you may: and when 
you are, you will find it a very ugly feeling. I hope 
that that day you may have a stout staunch friend by you 
who is not beat; for, if you have not, you had best lie 
where you are, and wait for better times, as poor Tom 
did. 

He could not get on. The sun was burning, and yet 
he felt chill all over. He was quite empty, and yet he 
felt quite sick. There was but two hundred yards of 
smooth pasture between him and the cottage, and yet he 
could not walk down it. He could hear the stream 
murmuring only one field beyond it, and yet it seemed to 
him as if it was a hundred miles off. 

He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over him, 
and the flies settled on his nose. I don’t know when he 
would have gat up again, if the gnats and the midges had 
not taken compassion on him. But the gnats blew their 




A Fairy Tale for a La?id-Baby. 


47 


trumpets so loud in his ear, and the midges nibbled so at 
his hands and face wherever they could find a place free 
from soot, that at last he woke up, and stumbled away, 
down over a low wall, and into a narrow road, and up to 
the cottage-door. 

And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew 
hedges all round the garden, and yews inside too, cut into 
peacocks and trumpets and teapots and all kinds of queer 
shapes. And out of the open door came a noise like that 
of the frogs on the Great-A, when they know that it is 
going to be scorching hot to-morrow—and how they know 
that I don’t know, and you don’t know, and nobody 
knows. 

He came slowly up to the open door, which was all 
hung round with clematis and roses; and then peeped in, 
half afraid. 

And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled 
with a pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that ever 
was seen, in her red petticoat, and short dimity bedgown, 
and clean white cap, with a black silk handkerchief over 
it, tied under her chin. At her feet sat the grandfather 
of all the cats; and opposite her sat, on two benches, 
twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, chubby little children, 
learning their Chris-cross-row; and gabble enough they 
made about it. 

Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean 
stone floor, and curious old prints on the walls, and an 
old black oak sideboard full of bright pewter and brass 
dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, which began 
shouting as soon as Tom appeared : not that it was fright¬ 
ened at Tom, but that it was just eleven o’clock. 



48 


The Water-Babies. 


All the children started at Tom’s dirty black figure,— 
the girls began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, and 
all pointed at him rudely enough; but Tom was too tired 
to care for that. 

“What art thou, and what dost want?” cried the old 
dame. “ A chimney-sweep ! Away with thee ! I’ll have 
no sweeps here.” 

“ Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint. 

“ Water ? There’s plenty i’ the beck,” she said, quite 
sharply. 

“ But I can’t get there; I’m most clemmed with hunger 
and drought.” And Tom sank down upon the door-step, 
and laid his head against the post. . 

And the old dame looked at him through her spec¬ 
tacles one minute, and two, and three ; and then she said, 
“ He’s sick ; and a bairn’s a bairn, sweep or none.” 

“ Water,” said Tom. 

“ God forgive me ! ” and she put by her spectacles, and 
rose, and came to Tom. “Water’s bad for thee ; I’ll give 
thee milk.” And she toddled off into the next room, and 
brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread. 

Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then 
looked up, revived. 

“ Where didst come from ? ” said the dame. 

“Over Fell, there,” said Tom, and pointed up into the 
sky. 

“Over Harthover ? and down Lewthwaite Crag ? Art 
sure thou art not lying ?” 

“ Why should I ? ” said Tom, and leant his head against 
the post. 

“ And how got ye up there ? ” 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


49 


/ 



“ I came over from the Place ; ” and Tom was so tired 
and desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, 
so he told all the truth in a few words. 

“ Bless thy little 
heart! And thou 
hast not been steal¬ 
ing, then ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Bless thy little 
heart! and I’ll war¬ 
rant not. Why, God’s 
guided the bairn, be¬ 
cause he was inno¬ 
cent ! Away from 
the Place, and over 
Harthover Fell, and 
down Lew th waite 
Crag! Who ever 
heard the like, if God 
hadn’t led him ? Why 
dost not eat thy 
bread ? ” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ It’s good enough, 
for I made it myself.” 

“ I can’t,” said 
Tom, and he laid his 
head on his knees, 
and then asked— 

“ Is it Sunday ?” 

“ No, then ; why should it be ? 


Why Dost Not Eat thy Bread?” 







5 ° 


The Water-Babies. 


“ Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.” 

“ Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn’s sick. Come wi’ 
me, and I’ll hap thee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit 
cleaner I’d put thee in my own bed, for the Lord’s sake. 
But come along here.” ' 

But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy 
that she had to help him and lead him. 

She put him in' an outhouse upon soft sweet hay and 
an old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and she 
would come to him when school was over, in an hour’s 
time. 

And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast 
asleep at once. 

But Tom did not fall asleep. 

Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in 
the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed 
to get into the river and cool himself; and then he fell 
half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the little white lady 
crying to him, “ Oh, you’re so dirty; go and be washed ; ” 
and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, “ Those 
that wish to be clean, clean they will be.” And then he 
heard the church-bells ring so loud, close to him too, that 
he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old 
dame had said; and he would go to church, and see 
what a church was like inside, for he had never been in 
one, poor little fellow, in all his life. But the people 
would never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like 
that. He must go to the river and wash first. And he 
said out loud again and again, though being half asleep 
he did not know it, “ I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the out- 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 51 

house on the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, over 
the road, with the stream just before him, saying continu¬ 
ally, “ I must be clean, I must be clean.” He had got 
there on his own legs, between sleep and awake, as 
children will often get out of bed, and go about the room, 
when they are not quite well. But he was not a bit sur¬ 
prised, and went on to the bank of the brook, and lay 
down on the grass, and looked into the clear, clear lime¬ 
stone water, with every pebble at the bottom bright and 
clean, while the little silver trout dashed about in fright 
at the sight of his black face ; and he dipped his hand 
in and found it so cool, cool, cool; and he said, “ I will 
be a fish. I will swim in the water; I must be clean, I 
must be clean.” 

So he pulled off all his clothes in such haste that he 
tore some of them, which was easy enough with such 
ragged old things. And he put his poor hot sore feet 
into the water; and then his legs; and the farther he 
went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head. 

“ Ah,” said Tom, “ I must be quick and wash myself; 
the bells are ringing quite loud now ; and they will stop 
soon, and then the door will be shut, and I shall never be 
able to get in at all.” 

Tom was mistaken : for in England the church doors 
are left open all service time, for everybody who likes to 
come in, Churchman or Dissenter ; ay, even if he were a 
Turk or a Heathen ; and if any man dared to turn him 
out, as long as he behaved quietly, the good old English 
law would punish that man, as he deserved, for ordering 
any peaceable person out of God’s house, which belongs 
to all alike. But Tom did not know that, any more than 





52 


The Water-Babies. 


he knew a great deal more which people ought to 
know. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, not 
behind him this time, but before. 

For just before he came to the river side, she had stept 
down into the cool clear water ; and her shawl and her petti¬ 
coat floated off her, and the green water-weeds floated 
round her sides, and the white water-lilies floated round her 
head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the bot¬ 
tom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she 
was the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more besides. 

“ Where have you been ? ” they asked her. 

“ I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and 
whispering sweet dreams into their ears; opening cottage 
casements, to let out the stifling air; coaxing little 
children away from gutters, and foul pools where fever 
breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, and 
staying men’s hands as they were going to strike their 
wives; doing all I can to help those who will not help 
themselves: and little enough that is, and weary work for 
me. But I have brought you a new little brother, and 
watched him safe all the way here.” 

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought that 
they had a little brother coming. 

“ But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know 
that you are here. He is but a savage now, and like the 
beasts which perish; and from the beasts which perish he 
must learn. So you must not play with him, or speak to 
him, or let him see you : but only keep him from being 
harmed.” 

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not play 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


53 


with their new brother, but they always did what they 
were told. 

And their Queen floated away down the river; and 
whither she went, thither she came. But all this Tom, of 
course, never saw or heard : and perhaps if he had it 
would have made little difference in the story ; for he 



was so hot 
and thirsty, and 
longed so to be 
clean for once, 
that he tumbled 
himself as quick 

“Their Queen Floated away down the River.” 3.S he could into 

the clear cool 


stream. 

And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell 
fast asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that 
ever he had in his life ; and he dreamt about the green 
meadows by which he had walked that morning, and the 
tall eltmtrees, and the sleeping cows ; and after that he 
dreamt of nothing at all. 

The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is 






54 


The Water-Babies . 


very simple; and yet hardly any one has found it out. 
It was merely that the fairies took him. 

Some people think that there are no fairies. Cousin 
Cratnchild tells little folks so in his Conversations. Well, 
perhaps there are none—in Boston, U.S., where he was 
raised. There are only a clumsy lot of spirits there, who 
can’t make people hear without thumping on the table : 
but they get their living thereby, and I suppose that is all 
they* want. And Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on 
political economy, says there are none. Well, perhaps 
there are none—in her political economy. But it is a 
wide world, my little man—and thank Heaven for it, for 
else, between crinolines and theories, some of us would 
get squashed—and plenty of room in it for fairies, 
without people seeing them ; unless, of course, they look 
in the right place. The most wonderful and the strong¬ 
est things in the world, you know, are just the things 
which no one can see. There is life in you ; and it is the 
life in you which makes you grow, and move, and think : 
and yet you can’t see it. And there is steam in a steam- 
engine ; and that is what makes it move: and yet you 
can’t see it; and so there maybe fairies in the world, 
and they may be just what makes the world go round to 
the old tune of 

“ (Test Vamour, Vamour, Vamour 
Quifait la monde a la ronde: ” 

and yet no one may be able to see them except those 
whose hearts are going round to that same tune. At all 
events, we will make believe that there are fairies in the 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


55 


world. It will not be the last time by many a one that 
we shall have to make believe. And yet, after all, there 
is no need for that. There must be fairies ; for this is a 
fairy tale : and how can one have a fairy tale if there are 
no fairies ? 

You don’t see the logic of that ? Perhaps not. Then 
please not to see the logic of a great many arguments 
exactly like it, which you will hear before your beard is 
gray. 

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school 
was over, to look at Tom : but there was no Tom there. 
She looked about for his footprints ; but the ground was 
so hard that there was no slot, as they say in dear old 
North Devon. And if you grow up to be a brave healthy 
man, you may know some day what no slot means, and 
know too, I hope, what a slot does mean—a broad slot, 
with blunt claws, which makes a man put out his cigar, and 
set his teeth, and tighten his girths, when he sees it; 
and what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, 
and points; and see something worth seeing between 
Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff, with good Mr. 
Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your bones 
as fast as you smash them. Only when that jolly day 
comes, please don’t break your neck; stogged in a mire 
vou never will be, I trust; for vou are a heath-ciopper 
bred and born. 

So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking 
that little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and 
shammed ill, and then run away again. 

But she altered her mind the next day. For, when Sir 
John and the rest of them had run themselves put of 



56 


The Water-Babies. 


breath, and lost Tom, they went back again, looking very 
foolish. 

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John heard 
more of the story from the nurse ; and more foolish still, 
again, when they heard the whole story from Miss Elbe, 
the little lady in white. All she had seen was a poor 
little black chimney-sweep, crying and sobbing, and going 
to get up the chimney again. Of course, she was very 
much frightened: and no wonder. But that was all. 
The boy had taken nothing in the room; by the mark of 
his little sooty feet, they could see that he had never been 
off the hearthrug till the nurse caught hold of him. It 
was all a mistake. 

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him 
five shillings if he would bring the boy quietly up to him, 
without beating him, that he might be sure of the truth. 
For he took for granted, and Grimes too, that Tom had 
made his way home. 

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; 
and he went to the police-office, to tell them to look out for 
the boy. But no Tom was heard of. As for his having 
gone over those great fells to Vendale, they no more 
dreamed of that than of his having gone to the moon. 

So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day with a 
very sour face; but when he got there, Sir John was over 
the hills and far away; and Mr. Grimes had to sit in the 
outer servants’ hall all day, and drink strong ale to wash 
away his sorrows; and they were washed away long before 
Sir John came back. 

For good Sir John had slept very badly that night; 
and he said to his lady, “ My dear, the boy must have got 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


57 


over into the grouse-moors, and lost himself; and he lies 
very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad. But I 
know what I will do.” 

So, at five the next morning up he got, and into his 
bath, and into his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and into 
the stableyard, like a fine old English gentleman, with a 
face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a table, and 
a back as broad as a bullock’s; and bade them bring his 
shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his pony, and 
the huntsman, and the first whip, and the second whip, 
and the underkeeper with the bloodhound in a leash—a 
great dog as tall as a calf, of the color of a gravel-walk, 
with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a church- 
bell. They took him up to the place where Tom had 
gone into the wood ; and there the hound lifted up his 
mighty voice, and told them all he knew. 

Then he took them to the place where Tom had 
climbed the wall; and they shoved it down, and all got 
through. 

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and 
over the fells, step by step, very slowly; for the scent was 
a day old, you know, and very light from the heat and 
drought. But that was why cunning old Sir John started 
at five in the morning. 

And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and 
there he bayed, and looked up in their faces, as much as to 
say, “ I tell you he is gone down here ! ” 

They could hardly believe that Tom would have gone 
so far; and when they looked at that awful cliff, they 
could never believe that he would have dared to face it. 
But if the dog said so ? it must be true. 



5 » 


The Water-Babies. 



“ Heaven forgive us !” said Sir John. “ If vve find him 
at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom.” And he 
slapped his great hand upon his great thigh, and said— 
“Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if 
that boy is alive ? Oh that I were twenty years younger, 
and I would go down myself! ” And so he would have 
done, as well as any sweep in the county. Then he 
said— 

“ Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that boy 

alive! ” and as was his 
way, what he said he 
meant. 

Now among the lot 
was a little groom-boy, 
a very little groom in¬ 
deed ; and he was the 
f same who had ridden 
up the court, and told 
Tom to come to the 
;f Hall; and he said— 
“Twenty pounds or 
none, I will go down 
over Lewthwaite Crag, 
if it’s only for the poor boy’s 
sake. For he was as civil a 
spoken little chap as ever 
climbed a flue.” 

So down over Lewthwaite 
Crag he went : a very smart 
“ I Tell Yot; He is Gone Down groom he was at the top, and 

Hbre! ” a very shabby one at the 








A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


59 


bottom ; for he tore his gaiters, and he tore his breeches, 
and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces, and he 
burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what was worst of 
all, he lost his shirt pin, which he prized very much, for it 
was gold, and he had won it in a raffle at Malton, and 
there was a figure at the top of it, of t’ould mare, noble 
old Beeswing herself, as natural as life; so it was *a 
really severe loss: but he never saw anything of 
Tom. 

And all the while Sir John and the rest were riding 
round, full three miles to the right, and back again, to get 
into Vendale, and to the foot of the crag. 

When they came to the old dame’s school, all the chil¬ 
dren came out to see. And the old dame came out too; 
and when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very low, for 
she was a tenant of his. 

“ Well, dame, and how are you ? ” said Sir John. 

“ Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harth- 
over,” says she—she didn’t call him Sir John, but only 
Harthover, for that is the fashion in the North country— 
“and welcome into Vendale : but you’re no hunting the 
fox this time of the year ? ” 

“ I am hunting, and strange game too,” said he. 

“ Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look so 
sad the morn ? ” 

“ I’m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that is 
run away.” 

“Oh, Harthover, Harthover!” says she, “ye were al¬ 
ways a just man and a merciful ; and ye’ll no harm the 
poor little lad if I give you tidings of him ? ” 

“ Not I, not I, dame. I’m afraid we hunted him out of 



6o 


The Water-Babies. 


the house all on a miserable mistake, and the hound has 
brought him to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and-” 

Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without letting 
him finish his story. 

“So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear! 
Ah, first thoughts are best, and a body’s heart’ll guide 
them right, if they will but hearken to it.” And then 
she told Sir John all. 

“Bring the dog here, and lay him on,” said Sir John, 
without another word, and he set his teeth very hard. 

And the dog opened at once; and went away at the 
back of the cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, 
and through a bit of alder copse ; and there, upon an al¬ 
der stump, they saw Tom’s clothes lying. And then they 
knew as much about it all as there was any need to know. 

And Tom ? 

Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this wonder¬ 
ful story. Tom, when he woke, for of course he woke— 
children always wake after they have slept exactly as 
long as is good for them—found himself swimming about 
in the stream, being about four inches, or—that I may be 
accurate—inches long, and having round the pa¬ 
rotid region of his fauces a set of external gills (I hope 
you understand all the big words) just like those of a suck¬ 
ing eft, which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at 
them, found he hurt himself, and made up his mind that 
they were part of himself, and best left alone. 

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby. 

A water-baby ? You never heard of a water-baby. 
Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story was 
written. There are a great many things in the world 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


61 


which you never heard of; and a great many more which 
nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, 
which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming 
of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all 
things, 

“ But there are no such things as water-babies. ” 

How do you know that ? Have you been there to see? 
And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, 
that would not prove that there were none. If Mr. 
Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood—as folks 
sometimes fear he never will—that does not prove that 
there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley 
Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we 
know to all the waters in the world. And no one has a 
right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen 
no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, 
mind, from not seeing water-babies: and a thing which 
nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. 

“But surely if there were water-babies, somebody 
would have caught one at least ? ” 

Well. How do you know that somebody has not? 

“ But they would have put it into spirits, or into the 
Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor 
dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and 
one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would each 
say about it.” 

Ah, my dear little man ! that does not follow at all, as 
you will see before the end of the story. 

“ But a water-baby is contrary to nature.” 

Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to talk 
about such things, when you grow older, in a very differ- 



62 


The Water-Babies . 


ent way from that. You must not talk about “ain’t” 
and “ can’t ” when you speak of this great wonderful 
world round you, of which the wisest man knows only the 
very smallest corner, and is, as the great Sir Isaac New¬ 
ton said, only a child picking up pebbles on the shore 
of a boundless ocean. 

You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is 
contrary to nature. You do not know what Nature is, or 
what she can do; and nobody knows; not even Sir Rod¬ 
erick Murchison, or Professor Owen, or Professor Sedg¬ 
wick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. Darwin, or Professor 
Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any other of the great men 
whom good boys are taught to respect. They are verv 
wise men ; and you must listen respectfully to all they 
say: but even if they should say, which I am sure they 
never would, “That cannot exist. That is contrary to 
nature,” you must wait a little, and see ; for perhaps even 
they may be wrong. It is only children who read Aunt 
Agitate’s Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild’s Conversa¬ 
tions; or lads who go to popular lectures, and see a man 
pointing at a few big ugly pictures on the wall, or making 
nasty smells with bottles and squirts, for an hour or two, 
and calling that anatomy or chemistry—who talk about 
“cannot exist,” and “contrary to nature.” Wise men 
are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature, 
except what is contrary to mathematical truth; for two 
and two cannot make five, and two straight lines cannot 
join twice, and a part cannot be as great as- the whole, 
and so on (at least, so it seems at present): but the wiser 
men are, the less they talk about “ cannot.” That is a 
very rash, dangerous word, that “ cannot ” ; and if people 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


63 


use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, who makes 
the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, and takes just as 
much trouble about one as about the other, is apt to 
astonish them suddenly by showing them, that though 



“Queen of all the Fairies, who Makes the Clouds Thunder.’’ 


they say she cannot, yet she can, and what is more, will, 
whether they approve or not. 

And therefore it is, that there are dozens and hundreds 
of things in the world which we should certainly have 




6 4 


The Water-Babies. 


said were contrary to nature, if we did not see them going 
on under our eyes all day long. If people had never 
seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite 
different shape from themselves, and these trees again 
produce fresh seeds, to grow into fresh trees, they would 
have said, “The thing cannot be; it is contrary to 
nature.” And they would have been quite as right in 
saying so, as in saying that most other things cannot be. 

Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du 
Chaillu, a traveller from unknown parts ; and that no 
human being had ever seen or heard of an elephant. 
And suppose that you described him to people, and said, 
“ This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of the beast, 
and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of his grinders, 
and of his tusks, though they are not tusks at all, but two 
fore teeth run mad ; and this is the section of his skull, 
more like a mushroom than a reasonable skull of a reas¬ 
onable or unreasonable beast; and so forth, and so forth ; 
and though the beast (which I assure you I have seen 
and shot) is first cousin to the little hairy coney of 
Scripture, second cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thir¬ 
teenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the 
wisest of all beasts, and can do everything save read, 
write, and cast accounts.” People would surely have 
said, “ Nonsense ; your elephant is contrary to nature ; ” 
and have thought you were telling stories—as the French 
thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and 
said that he had shot a giraffe; and as the king of the 
Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor, when he 
said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain 
fell as feathers. They would tell you, the more they 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


65 


knew of science, “Your elephant is an impossible mon¬ 
ster, contrary to the laws of comparative anatomy, as far 
as yet known.” To which you would answer the less, 
the more you thought. 

Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last 
twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible 
monster? And do we not now know that there are hun¬ 
dreds of them found fossil up and down the world ? 
People call them Pterodactyles : but that is only because 
they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after deny¬ 
ing so long that flying dragons could exist. 

The truth is, that folks’ fancy that such and such things 
cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, is 
worth no more than a savage’s fancy that there cannot be 
such a thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one 
running wild in the forest. Wise men know that their 
business is to examine what is, and not to settle 
what is not. They know that there are elephants; they 
know that there have been flying dragons ; and the wiser 



“A Flying Dragon was an Impossible Monster.” 







66 The Water-Babies\ 

they are, the 
less inclined 
they will be to 
say positively 
that there are 
no water- 
babies. 

No water- 
babies, in¬ 
deed ? Why, 
wise men of 

old said that everything 

# 

on earth had its double in 
the water; and you may 
see that that is, if not 
quite true, still quite as 
true as most other theories 
which you are likely to 
hear for many a day. 
There are land-babies— 
then why not water-ba¬ 
bies? Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water-crickets, 
water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers 
and wate?'-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and 
sea-bea?'s , sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea- 
urchins , sea-razors and sea-pens , sea-conibs and sea-fans; 
and of plants are there not wate?'-grass and water-cro7ifoot, 
water-milfoil and so on, without e?id ? 

“ But all these things are only nicknames ; the water 
things are not really akin to the land things.” 

That’s not always true. They are, in millions of cases, 


The Historyt of the Jelly-Fish is 
Quite as Wonderful.” 










A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


67 


not only of the same family, but actually the same indi¬ 
vidual creatures. Do not even you know that a green 
drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under water 
till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his? 
And if a water animal can continually change into a land 
animal, why should not a land animal sometimes change 
into a water animal ? Don’t be put down by any of 
Cousin Cramchild’s arguments, but stand up to him like 
a man, and answer him (quite respectfully, of course) 
thus :— 

If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, 
they must grow into water-men, ask him how he knows 
that they do not ? and then, how he knows that they must, 
any more than the Proteus of the Adelsberg caverns 
grows into a perfect newt. 

If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a 
land-baby to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever 
heard of the transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or 
the common jelly-fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excel¬ 
lently well—“ Who would not exclaim that a miracle had 
come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg- 
dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile 
give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and 
birds ? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonder¬ 
ful as that would be.” Ask him if he knows about all 
this ; and if he does not, tell him to go and look for him¬ 
self ; and advise him (very respectfully, of course) to 
settle no more what strange things cannot happen, till he 
has seen what strange things do happen every day. 

If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change 
downwards into lower forms, ask him, who told him that 



68 


The Water-Babies. 


water-babies were lower than land-babies ? But even if 
they were, does he know about the strange degradation 
of the common goose-barnacles, which one finds sticking 
oh ships’ bottoms ; or the still stranger degradation of 
some cousins of theirs, of which one hardly likes to talk, 
so shocking and ugly it is ? 

And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) that 
these transformations only take place in the lower animals, 
and not in the higher, say that that seems to little boys, 
and to some grown people, a very strange fancy. For 
if the changes of the lower animals are so wonderful, 
and so difficult to discover, why should not there be 
changes in the higher animals far more wonderful, and far 
more difficult to discover? And may not man, the crown 
and flower of all things, undergo some change as much 
more wonderful than all the rest, as the Great Exhibition 
is more wonderful than a rabbit-burrow? Let him answer 
that. And if he says (as he will) that not having seen 
such a change in his experience, he is not bound to be¬ 
lieve it, ask him respectfully, where his microscope has 
been ? Does not each of us, in coming into, this world, 
go through a transformation just as wonderful as that of a 
sea : egg, or a butterfly ? and do not reason and analogy, as 
well as Scripture, tell us that that transformation is not the 
last ? and that, though what we shall be, we know not, yet 
we are here but as the crawling caterpillar, and shall be 
hereafter as the perfect fly. The old Greeks, heathens as 
they were, saw as much as that two thousand years ago ; 
and I care very little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees 
even less than they. And so forth, and so forth, till he 
is quite cross. And then tell him that if there are no 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


69 


water-babies, at least there ought to be ; and that, at 
least, he cannot answer. 

And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know a 
great deal more about nature than Professor Owen and Pro¬ 
fessor Huxley put together, don’t tell me about what cannot 
be, or fancy that anything is too wonderful to be true. 
“ We are fearfully and wonderfully made,” said old David ; 
and so we are; and so is everything around us, down to 
the very deal table. Yes ; much more fearfully and won¬ 
derfully made, already, is the table, as it stands now, 
nothing but a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes 
say, and geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or 
talk to you by rapping on it. 

Am I in earnest ? Oh dear no ! Don’t you know that 
this is a fairy tale and all fun and pretence ; and that you 
are not to believe one word of it, even if it is true ? 

But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And there¬ 
fore, the keeper, and the groom, and Sir John made a 
great mistake, and were very unhappy (Sir John at least) 
without any reason, when they found a black thing in the 
water, and said it was Tom’s body, and that he had been 
drowned. They were utterly mistaken. Tom was quite 
alive ; and cleaner, and merrier, than he ever had been. 
The fairies had washed him, you see, in the swift river so 
thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and 
shell had been washed quite off from him, and the pretty 
little real Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and 
swam away, as a caddis does when its case of stones and 
silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back, pad¬ 
dling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away as a 
caperer, on four fawn-colored wings, with long legs and 




70 


The Water-Babies. 



horns. They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into 
the candle at night, if you leave the door open. We will 
hope Tom will be wiser, now he has got safe out of his 
sooty old shell. 








‘•Running after Poachers .' 1 

But good Sir John did not understand all this, not 
being a fellow of the Linnaean Society; and he took it 
into his head that Tom was drowned. When they looked 
into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewels 









“The Dame Decked it with Garlands Every Sunday 





















7 2 


The Water-Babies. 


there, nor money—nothing but three marbles, and a 
brass button with a string to it—then Sir John did some¬ 
thing as like crying as ever he did in his life, and blamed 
himself more bitterly than he need have done. So he 
cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the huntsman cried, 
and the dame cried, and the little girl cried, and the 
dairymaid cried, and the old nurse cried (for it was some¬ 
what her fault), and my lady cried, for though people 
have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have 
hearts; but the keeper did not cry, though he had been 
so good natured to Tom the morning before ; for he was 
so dried up with running after poachers, that you could 
no more get tears out of him than milk out of leather; 
and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, 
and he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far and 
wide, to find Tom’s father and mother: but he might 
have looked till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, 
and the other was in Botany Bay. And the little girl 
would not play with her dolls for a whole week, and 
never forgot poor little Tom. And soon my lady put a 
pretty little tombstone over Tom’s shell in the little 
churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep 
side by side between the limestone crags. And the dame 
decked it with garlands every Sunday, till she grew so old 
that she could not stir abroad; then the little children 
decked it for her. And always she sang an old old song, 
as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress. 
The children could not understand it, but they liked it 
none the less for that ; for it was very sweet, and very 
sad; and that was enough for them. And these are the 
words of it:— 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


73 


When all the world is young, lad, 
And all the trees are green ; 

And every goose a swan, lad. 

And every lass a queen ; 

Then hey for boot and horse, lad, 

And round the world away; 

Young blood must have its course, lad, 
And every dog his day. 

When all the world is old, lad, 

And all the trees are brown ; 

And all the sport is stale, lad, 

And all the wheels run down ; 

Creep home, and take your place there, 
The spent and maimed among: 

God grant you find one face there, 

You loved when all was young. 



74 


The Water-Babies. 


Those are the words : but they are only the body of it: 
the soul of the song was the dear old woman’s sweet face, 
and sweet voice, and the sweet old air to which she sang; 
and that, alas ! one cannot put on paper. And at last 
she grew so stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to 
carry her; and they helped her on with her wedding- 
dress, and carried her up over Harthover Fells, and a 
long way beyond that too ; and there was a new school¬ 
mistress in Vendale, and we will hope that she was not 
certificated. 

And all the while Tom was swimming about in the 
river, with a pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, 
as lively as a grig, and as clean as a fresh-run salmon. 

Now if you don’t like my story, then go to the school¬ 
room and learn your multiplication-table, and see if you 
like that better. Some people, no doubt, would do so. 
So much the better for us, if not for them. It takes all 
sorts, they say, to make a world. 





“ lie prayeth well who loveth well 
Both men and bird and beast; 
He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small: 
For the dear God who loveth ns, 
lie made and loveth all.” 






CHAPTER III. 


Tom was now quite amphibious. You do not know 
what that means ? 

You had better, then, ask the nearest Government 
pupil-teacher, who may possibly answer you smartly 
enough, thus— 

“ Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek 
words, amphi , a fish, and bios , a beast. An animal sup¬ 
posed by our ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a 
fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus, 
can’t live on the land, and dies in the water.” 

However that may be, Tom was amphibious: and what 
is better still, he was clean. For the first time in his life, 
he felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him 
but himself. But he only enjoyed it: he did not know it, 
or think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and 
yet never think about being alive and healthy; and may it 
be long before you have to think about it! 

He did not remember having ever been dirty. Indeed, 
he did not remember any of his old troubles, being tired, 
or hungry, or beaten, or sent up dark chimneys. Since 
that sweet sleep, he had forgotten all about his master, 
and Harthover Place, and the little white girl, and in a 


78 


The Water-Babies. 


word, all that had happened to him when he lived before; 
and what was best of all, he had forgotten all the bad 
words which he had learned from Grimes, and the rude 
boys with whom he used to play. 

That is not strange: for you know, when you came into 
this world, and became a land-baby, you remembered 
nothing. So why should he, when he became a water- 
baby ? 

Then have you lived before ? 

My dear child, who can tell? One can only tell that, 
by remembering something which happened where we 
lived before ; and as we remember nothing, we know 
nothing about it; and no book, and no man, can ever 
tell us certainly. 

There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and a 
very good man, who wrote a poem about the feelings 
which some children have about having lived before ; and 
this is what he said— 

“ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 

The soul that rises with us, our life's star , 

Hath elsewhere had its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
From God, who is our home .” 

There, you can know no more than that. But if I was 
you, I would believe that. For then the great fairy Sci¬ 
ence, who is likely to be queen of all the fairies for many 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


79 


a year to come, can only do you good, and never do you 
harm ; and instead of fancying, with some people, that 
your body makes your soul, as if a steam-engine could 
make its own coke; or, with some people, that your soul 
has nothing to do with your body, but is only stuck into 
it like a pin into a pin-cushion, to fall out with the first 
shake ;—you will believe the one true, 


inductive , 
deductive, 
seductive, 
productive, 
salutary, 


orthodox, 

rational , 

philosophical, 

logical , 

irrefragable, 

nominalistic, 

realistic. 


comfortable. 


and on-all-accounts-to-be-received 


doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale; which is, that your 
soul makes your body, just as a snail makes his shell. 
For the rest, it is enough for us to be sure that whether 
or not we lived before, we shall live again ; though not, I 
hope, as poor little heathen Tom did. For he went down¬ 
ward into the water but we, I hope, shall go upward to a 
very different place. 

But Tom was very happy in the water. He had been 
sadly overworked in the land-world; and so now, to make 
up for that, he had nothing but holidays in the water- 
world for a long, long time to come. He had nothing to 
do now but enjoy himself, and look at all the pretty things 
which are to be seen in the cool clear water-world, where 
the sun is never too hot, and the frost is never too cold. 



8 o 


The Water-Babies. 


And what did he live on ? Water-cresses, perhaps; or 
perhaps water-gruel, and water-milk; too many land- 
babies do so likewise. But we do not know what one-tenth 
of the water-things eat; so we are not answerable for the 
water-babies. 

Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water-ways, 
looking at the crickets which ran in and out among the 
stones, as rabbits do on land ; or he climbed over the ledges 
of rock, and saw the sand-pipes hanging in thousands, 
with every one of them a pretty little head .and legs peep¬ 
ing out; or he went into a still corner, and watched the 
caddises eating dead sticks as greedily as you would eat 
plum-pudding, and building their houses with silk and 
glue. Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them 
would keep to the same materials for a day. One would 
begin with some pebbles; then she would stick on a piece 
of green wood ; then she found a shell, and stuck it on too; 
and the poor shell was alive, and did not like at all being 
taken to build houses with: but the caddis did not let him 
have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as 
vain people are apt to be ; then she stuck on a piece of 
rotten wood, then a very smart pink stone, and so on, till 
she was patched all over like an Irishman’s coat. Then 
she found a long straw, five times as long as herself, and 
said, “ Hurrah ! my sister has a tail, and I’ll have one 
too; ” and she stuck it on her back, and marched about 
with it quite proud, though it was very inconvenient in¬ 
deed. And, at that, tails became all the fashion among 
the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were at the end of 
the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with 
long straws sticking out behind, getting between each 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


81 


other’s legs, and tumbling over each other, and looking 
so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried, as 
we did. But they were quite right, you know; for people 
must always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bon¬ 
nets. 

Then sometimes he came to a. deep still reach; and 
there he saw the water-forests. They would have looked 
to you only little weeds: but Tom, you must remember, 
was so little that everything looked a hundred times as 
big to him as it does to you, just as things do to a minnow, 
who sees and catches the little water-creatures which you 
can only see in a microscope. 

And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and 
water-squirrels (they had all six legs, though; everything 
almost has six legs in the water, except efts and water- 
babies); and nimbly enough they ran among the branches. 
There were water-flowers there too, in thousands; and 
Tom tried to pick them : but as soon as he touched them, 
they drew themselves in and turned into knots of jelly; 
and then Tom saw that they were all alive—bells, and 
stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful shapes and 
colors; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was. So 
now he found that there was a great deal more in the 
world than he had fancied at first sight. 

There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped 
out of the top of a house built of round bricks. He had 
two big wheels, and one little one, all over teeth, spinning 
round and round like the wheels in a thrashing-machine ; 
and Tom stood and stared at him, to see what he was 
going to make with his machinery. And what do you 
think he was doing? Brick-making. With his two big 




82 


The Water-Babies, 



wheels he swept together all the mud which floated in the 
water • all that was nice in it he put into his stomach and 
ate ; and all the mud he put into 
the little wheel on his breast, 
which really was a round hole 
set with teeth; and there 
he spun it into a neat hard 
round brick ; and then 
he took it and stuck 


u s e - 
1, and 
set to work 
to make 
another. Now was 
not he a clever little 
fellow? 

Tom thought so: 
but when he wanted 
to talk to him the 
brick-maker was much 

too busy and proud of his work to take notice of him. 
Now you must know that all the things under the water 


There were Water Flowers there 
too.” 









A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


83 


talk; only not such a language as ours; but such as 
horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds talk to each other; 
and Tom soon learned to understand them and talk to 
them ; so that he might have had very pleasant company 
if he had only been a good boy. But I am sorry to say, 
he was too like some other little boys, very fond of hunting 
and tormenting creatures for mere sport. Some people say 
that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a 
proof that we are all originally descended from beasts of 
prey. But whether it is nature or not, little boys can help 
it, and must help it. For if they have naughty, low, mis¬ 
chievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that is no 
reason why they should give way to those tricks like mon¬ 
keys, who know no better. And therefore they must not 
torment dumb creatures ; for if they do, a certain old lady 
who is coming will surely give them exactly what they 
deserve. 

But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and howked 
the poor water-things about sadly, till they were all afraid 
of him, and got out of his way, or crept into their shells; 
so he had no one to speak to or play with. 

The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see him 
so unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him how 
naughty he was, and teach him to be good, and to play 
and romp with him too : but they had been forbidden to 
do that. Tom had to learn his lesson for himself by 
sound and sharp experience, as many another foolish 
person has to do, though there may be many a kind heart 
yearning over them all the while, and longing to teach 
them what they can only teach themselves. 

At Inst one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to 



8 4 


The Water-Babies. 



peep out of its house : but its house-door was shut. He 
had never seen a caddis with a house-door before : so 

what must he do, the meddle¬ 
some little fellow, but pull it 
open to see what the poor 
lady was doing inside. What 
a shame ! How should you 
like to have any one breaking 
your bedroom-door in, to see 
how you looked when you 
were in bed ? So Tom broke 
to pieces the door, which was 
the prettiest little grating of 
silk, stuck all over with 
shining bits of crys¬ 
tal ; and when he 
looked in, 


“ Pecked and 
Howked the poor 
Water-Things about 
Sadly.” 


the caddis poked out her head, 
and it had turned into just the 

shape of a bird’s. But when Tom spoke to her she could 
not answer; for her mouth and face were tight tied up in a 












A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


85 


new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she didn’t 
answer all the other caddises did; for they held up their 
hands and shrieked like the cats in Struwelpeter: “ Oh, 
you nasty horrid boy ; there you are at it again ! And she 
had just laid herself up for a fortnight s sleep , and then she 
would have come out with such beautiful wings , and flown 
about , and laid such lots of eggs: and now you have broken 
her door , and she can't mend it because her mouth is tied up 
for a fortnight , and she will die. Who sent you here to 
worry us out of our lives ? ” 

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of 
himself, and felt all the naughtier; as little boys do 
when they have done wrong and won’t say so. 

Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and began 
tormenting them, and trying to catch them : but they 
slipped through his fingers, and jumped clean out of 
water in their fright. But as Tom chased them, he came 
close to a great dark hover under an alder root, and out 
floushed a huge old brown trout ten times as big as he 
was, and ran right against him, and knocked all the breath 
out of his body; and I don’t know which was the more 
frightened of the two. 

Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved to 
be; and under a bank he saw a very ugly dirty creature 
sitting, about half as big as himself; which had six legs, 
and a big stomach, and a most ridiculous head with two 
great eyes and a face just like a donkey’s. 

“ Oh,” said Tom, “ you are an ugly fellow to be sure ! ” 
and he began making faces at him; and put his nose 
close to him, and halloed at him, like a very rude boy. 

When ? hey presto ; all the thing’s donkey-face came off 



86 


The Water-Babies. 


in a moment, and out popped a long arm with a pair of 
pincers at the end of it, and caught Tom by the nose. It 
did not hurt him much ; but it held him quite tight. 

“Yah, ah ! Oh, let me go ! ” cried Tom. 



“Out Floushed a Huge Old Brown Trout.” 


“ Then let me go,” said the creature. “ I want to be 
quiet. I want to split.” 

Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go. “ Why 
do you want to split ? ” said Tom. 

“Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


87 


turned into beautiful creatures with wings ; and I want to 
split too. Don’t speak to me. I am sure I shall split! I 
will split! ” 

Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled 
himself, and puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and at 
last—crack, puff, bang—he opened all down his back, 
and then up to the top of his head. 

And out of his inside came the most slender, elegant, 
soft creature, as soft and smooth as Tom : but very pale 
and weak, like a little child who has been ill a long time 
in a dark room. It moved its legs very feebly; and 
looked about it half ashamed, like a girl when she goes 
for the first time into a ballroom; and then it began 
walking slowly up a grass stem to the top of the water. 

Tom was so astonished that he never said a word: but 
he stared with all his eyes. And he went up to the top of 
the water too, and peeped out to see what would happen. 

And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a 
wonderful change came over it. It grew strong and firm; 
the most lovely colors began to show on its body, blue 
and yellow and black, spots and bars and rings; out of its 
back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze; and 
its eyes grew so large that they filled all its head, and 
shone like ten thousand diamonds. 

“ Oh, you beautiful creature ! ” said Tom ; and he put 
out his hand to catch it. 

But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung poised 
on its wings a moment, and then settled down again by 
Tom quite fearless. 

“No ! ” it said, “ you cannot catch me. I am a dragon¬ 
fly now, the king of all the flies ; and I shall dance in the 



88 


Ihe Water-Babies. 


sunshine, and hawk over the river, and catch gnats, and 
have a beautiful wife like myself. I know what I 
shall do. Hurrah! ” And he flew away into the air, and 
began catching gnats. 

“Oh! come back, come back,” cried Tom, “you beau¬ 
tiful creature. I have no one to play with, and I am so 
lonely here. If you will but come back I will never try 
to catch you.” 

“ I don’t care whether you do or not,” said the dragon¬ 
fly ; “ for you can’t. But when I have had my dinner, 
and looked a little about this pretty place, I will come 
back, and have a little chat about all I have seen in my 
travels. Why, what a huge tree this is! and what huge 
leaves on it !” 

It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon-fly 
had never seen any but little water-trees ; starwort, and 
milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like; so it did look 
very big to him. Besides, he was very short-sighted, as 
all dragon-flies are; and never could see a yard before 
his nose ; any more than a great many other folks, who 
are not half as handsome as he. 

The dragon-fly did come back and chatted away with 
Tom. He was a little conceited about his fine colors 
and his large wings ; but you know, he had been a poor 
dirty ugly creature all his life before ; so there were great 
excuses for him. He was very fond of talking about all the 
wonderful things he saw in the trees and the meadows; 
and Tom liked to listen to him, for he had forgotten all 
about them. So in a little while they became great 
friends. 

And I am very glad to say, that Tom learned such 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


89 


a lesson that day, that he did not torment creatures for a 
long time after. And then the caddises grew quite tame, 
and used to tell him strange stories about the way they 
built their houses, and changed their skins, and turned 





“The Dragon-Fly did Come Back, and Chatted away with Tom.” 

at last into winged flies; till Tom began to long to change 
his skin, and have wings like them some day. 

And the trout and he made it up (for trout very soon 
forget if they have been frightened and hurt). So Tom 
used to play with them at hare and hounds, and great fun 
they had ; and he used to try to leap out of the water, 
head over heels, as they did before a shower came on ; 






9 ° 


The Water-Babies. 


but somehow he never could manage it. He likecl most, 
though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round 
and’ round under the shadow of the great oak, where the 
beetles fell flop into the water, and the green caterpillars 
let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for 
no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for 
no reason at all either; and hauled themselves up again 
into the tree, rolling up the rope in a ball between their 
paws; which is a very clever rope dancer’s trick, and 
neither Blondin nor Leotard could do it: but why they 
should take so much trouble about it no one can tell; for 
they cannot get their living, as Blondin and Leotard do, 
by trying to break their necks on a string. 

And very often Tom caught them just as they touched 
the water; and caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, 
and the cock-tailed duns and spinners, yellow, and brown, 
and claret, and gray, and gave them to his friends the 
trout. Perhaps he was not quite kind to the flies; but 
one must do a good turn to one’s friends when one can. 

And at last he gave up catching even the flies; for he 
made acquaintance with one by accident and found him a 
very merry little fellow. And this was the way it hap¬ 
pened ; and it is all quite true. 

He was basking at the top of the water one hot day in 
July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he saw a 
new sort, a dark gray little fellow with a brown ^ad. 
He was a very little fellow indeed : but he made the most 
of himself, as people ought to do. He cocked up his 
head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked up his 
tail, and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail-end, and, 
in short, he looked the cockiest little man of all little men. 





A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


9 i 


And so he proved to be; for instead- of getting away, he 
hopped upon Tom’s finger, and sat there as bold as nine 
tailors; and he cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, squeak¬ 
iest little voice you ever heard : 

“ Much obliged to you, indeed; but I dont want it yet.” 

“Want what?” said Tom, quite taken aback by his im¬ 
pudence. 

“ Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out for 
me to sit on. I must just go and see after my wife for a 
few minutes. Dear me! what a troublesome business a 
family is ! ” (though the idle little rogue did nothing at all, 
but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by herself). 

“ When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if you’ll be 
so good as to keep it sticking out just so; ” and off he 
flew. 

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; and 
still more so, when, in five minutes he came baek, and 
said—“ Ah, you were tired waiting ? Well, your other 
leg will do as well.” 

And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and began 
chatting away in his squeaking voice. 

“ So you live under the water ? It’s a low place. I 
lived there for some time ; and was very shabby and dirty. 
But I didn’t choose that that should last. So I turned 
respectable, and came up to the top, and put on this gray 
suit* It’s a very business-like suit, you think, don’t you ? 

‘*wery neat and quiet indeed,” said Tom. 

“Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, 
and all that sort of thing for a little, when one becomes 
a family man. But I’m tired of it, that’s the truth. I’ve 
done quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, 







9 2 


The Water-Babies. 







“ The Whisks at the 
End of his Tail had 
Grown Five times as Long 
as They were Before.” 


to last me 
my life. So 
I shall put on 
a ball dress, 
and go out and be a 
smart man, and see the 
gay world, and have a 
dance or two. Why 
shouldn’t one be jolly if 
one can ? ” 

“ And what will be- 


>f your wife ? ” 

“ Oh ! she is a very plain stupid creature, and 
that’s the truth ; and thinks about nothing but eggs. 
If she chooses to come, why she may; and if not, 
why I go without her;—and here I go.” 

And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then 
quite white. 

“ Why, you’re ill! ” said Tom. But he did not answer. 

“ You’re dead,” said Tom, looking at him as he stood 
on his knee as white as a ghost. 

“No, I ain’t !” answered a little squeaking voice over 
his head. “ This is me up here, in my ball-dress ; and 
that’s my skin. Ha, ha ! you could not do such a trick as 
that! ” 

And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Robin, nor 
Frikell, nor all the conjurors in the world. For the 
little rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, and 
left it standing on Tom’s knee, eyes, wings, legs, tail, 
exactly as if it had been alive. 

“ Ha, ha!” he said, and he jerked and skipped up an 







A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


93 


down, never stopping an instant, just as if he had St. 
Vitus’s dance. “Ain’t I a pretty fellow now ? ” 

And so he was; for his body was white, and his tail 
orange, and his eyes all the colors of a peacock’s tail. 
And what was the oddest of all, the whisks at the end of 
his tail had grown five times as long as they were 
before. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, “ now I will see the gay world. My 
living won’t cost me much, for I have no mouth, you see, 
and no inside ; so I can never be hungry nor have the 
stomach-ache neither.” 

No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard and 
empty as a quill, as such silly shallow-hearted fellows 
deserve to grow. 

But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he was 
quite proud of it, as a good many fine gentlemen are, and 
began flirting and flipping up and down, and singing— 

“ My wife shall dance , and I shall sing, 

So merrily pass the day ; 

For I hold it for quite the wisest thing, 

To drive dull care aw ay A 


And he danced up and down for three days and three 
nights, till he grew so tired, that he tumbled into the water 
and floated down. But what became of him Tom never 
knew, and he himself never minded ; for Tom heard him 
singing to the last, as he floated down— 


To drive dull care away-ay-ay ! ” 



94 


The Water-Babies . 


And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either. 

But one day Toni had a new adventure. He was sit¬ 
ting on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, 
watching the gnats dance. The dragon-fly had eaten as 
many as he wanted, and was sitting quite still and sleepy, 
for it was very hot and bright. The gnats (who did not 
care the least for their poor brothers’ death) danced a 
foot over his head quite happily, and a large black fly 
settled within an inch of his nose, and began washing his 
own face and combing his hair with his paws : but the 
dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom 
about the times when he lived under the water. 

Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the 
stream ; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and squeak¬ 
ing, as if you had put into a bag two stock-doves, nine 
mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them 
there to settle themselves and make music. 

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as 
strange as the noise ; a great ball rolling over and oyer 
down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown fur, 
and the next of shining glass: and yet it was not a ball; 
for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, 
and then it joined again ; and all the while the noise came 
out of it louder and louder. 

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of 
course, with his short sight, he could not even see it, 
though it was not ten yards away. So he took the neatest 
little header into the water, and started off to see for 
himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to 
be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than 
Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


95 


and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and 
biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that 
ever was seen. And if you don’t believe me, you may go to 
the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won’t see it 
nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, 
and go down to Cordery’s Moor, and watch by the great 
withy pollard which hangs over the backwater, where the 
otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at play in 
the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest crea¬ 
tures you ever saw. 

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted 
out from the rest, and cried in the water-language 
sharply enough, “ Quick, children, here is something to 
eat, indeed ! ” and came at poor Tom, showing such a 
wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in a 
grinning mouth, that Tom, who had thought her very 
handsome, said to himself, Handsome is that handsome 
does , and slipped in between the water-lily roots as fast as 
he could, and then turned round and made faces at her. 

“Come out,” said the wicked old otter, “or it will be 
worse for you.” 

But Tom looked at her from between two thick roots, 
and shook them with all his might, making horrible faces 
all the while, just as he used to grin through the railings 
at the old women, when he lived before. It was not 
quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom had not 
finished his education yet. 

“ Come, away, children,” said the otter in disgust, “ it 
is not worth eating, after all. It is only a nasty eft, which 
nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in the pond.” 

“ I am not an eft! ” said Tom ; “efts have tails.” 













A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


97 


“You are an eft,” said the otter, very positively; “I 
see your two hands quite plain, and I know you have a 
tail.” 

“ I tell you I have not,” said Tom. “ Look here ! ” and 
he turned his pretty little self quite round; and, sure 
enough, he had no more tail than you. 

The otter might have got out of it by saying that Tom 
was a frog : but, like a great many other people, when she 
had once said a thing, she stood to it, right or wrong; so 
she answered : 

“ I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and not 
fit food for gentlefolk like me and my children. You 
may stay there till the salmon eat you” (she knew the 
salmon would not, but she wanted to frighten poor Tom). 
“ Ha ! Ha ! they will eat you, and we will eat them ! ” and 
the otter laughed such a wicked cruel laugh—as you may 
hear them do sometimes; and the first time that you 
hear it you will probably think it is bogies. 

“What are salmon?” asked Tom. 

“ Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are 
the lords of the fish, and we are the lords of the salmon,” 
and she laughed again. “We hunt them up and down 
the pools, and drive them up into a corner, the silly 
things; they are so proud, and bully the little trout, and 
the minnows, till they see us coming, and then they are so 
meek all at once; and we catch them, but we disdain to 
eat them all ; we just bite out their soft throats and suck 
their sweet juice—Oh, so good ! ”-—(and she licked her 
wicked lips)—“ and then throw them away, and go and 
catch another. They are coming soon, children, coming 
soon ; I can smell the rain coming up off the sea, and 



9 8 


The Water-Babies. 


then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of eating 
all day long.” 

And the otter grew so proud that she turned head over 
heels twice, and then stood upright half out of the water, 
grinning like a Cheshire cat. 

“ And where do they come from ? ” asked Tom, who 
kept himself very close, for he was considerably frightened. 

“ Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they 
might stay and be safe if they liked. But out of the sea 
the silly things come, into the great river down below, 
and we come up to watch for them ; and when they go 
down again we go down and follow them. And there we 
fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days 
along the shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and 
sleep snug in the warm dry crags. Ah, that is a merry 
life, too, children, if it were not for those horrid men.” 

“ What are men ? ” asked Tom; but somehow he 
seemed to know before he asked. 

“Two-legged things, eft: and, now I come to look at 
you, they are actually something like you, if you had not 
a tail,” (she was determined that Tom should have a tail), 
“only a great deal bigger, worse luck for us; and they 
catch the fish with hooks and lines, which get into our 
feet sometimes, and set pots along the rocks to catch lob¬ 
sters. They speared my poor dear husband as he went 
out to find something for me to eat. I was laid up among 
the crags then, and we were very low in the world, for the 
sea was so rough that no fish would come in shore. But 
they speared him, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying 
him away upon a pole. Ah, he lost his life for your sakes, 
my children, poor dear obedient creature that he was.” 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


99 


And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can be 
very sentimental when they choose, like a good many peo¬ 
ple who are both cruel and greedy, and no good to any¬ 
body at all) that she sailed solemnly away down the burn, 
and Tom saw her no more for that time. And lucky it 
was for her that she did so ; for no sooner was she gone, 
than down the bank came seven little rough terrier dogs, 
snuffing and yapping, and grubbing and splashing, in full 
cry after the otter. Tom hid among the water-lilies till 
they were gone ; for he could not guess that they were 
the water-fairies come to help him. 

But he could not help thinking of what the otter had 
said about the great river and the broad sea. And, as he 
thought, he longed to go and see them. He could not 
tell why; but the more he thought, the more he grew dis¬ 
contented with the narrow little stream in which he lived, 
and all his companions there ; and wanted to get out into 
the wide, wide world, and enjoy all the wonderful sights 
of which he was sure it was full. 

And once he set off to go down the stream. But the 
stream was very low; and when he came to the shallows 
he could not keep under water, for there was no water 
left to keep under. So the sun burned his back and 
made him sick; and he went back again and lay quiet in 
the pool for a whole week more. 

And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a 
sight. 

He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout; 
for they would not move an inch to take a fly, though 
there were thousands on the water, but lay dozing at the 
bottom under the shade of the stones ; and Tom lay doz- 



100 


The Water-Babies. 


ing too, and was glad to cuddle their smooth cool sides, 
for the water was quite warm and unpleasant. 

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom 
looked up and saw a blanket of black clouds lying right 
across the valley above his head, resting on the crags 
right and left. He felt not quite frightened, but very 
still; for everything was still. There was not a whisper 
of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next a 
few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and one 
hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop his head down 
quickly enough. 

And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, 
and leapt across Yendale and back again, from cloud to 
cloud, and cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in the stream 
seemed to shake: and Tom looked up at it through the 
water, and thought it the finest thing he ever saw in his life. 

But out of the water he dared not put his head , for the 
rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail hammered 
like shot on the stream, and churned it into foam ; and 
soon the stream rose, and rushed down, higher and higher, 
and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks; and 
straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood-lice, and 
leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums, and 
this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums. 

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid 
behind a rock. But the trout did not; for out they rushed 
from among the stones, and began gobbling the beetles 
and leeches in the most greedy and quarrelsome way, and 
swimming about with great worms hanging out of their 
mouths, tugging and kicking to get them away from each 
other. 



t 


I 

A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


IOI 



And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a 
new sight—all the bottom of the stream 
alive with great eels, turning and twist¬ 
ing along, all down stream and away. 

They had been hiding for weeks past in % 
the cracks of the rocks, and in burrows 
in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever 
seen them, except now and then at JR' 

night: but now they were all out, and jfP- 

went hurrying past him so 
fiercely and wildly that he 
was quite frightened. 

And as they hurried 
past he could 
hear them sa~* 

to each , V other, 

“We 'j/r ^ must run, 

we must run. 
What a jolly 
thunderstorm ! Down 
to the sea, down to the 
sea! ” 

And then the otter came by 
with all her brood, twining and 
sweeping along as fast as the eels 
themselves ; and she spied Tom 
as she came by, and said : 

“ Now is your time, eft, 
if you want to see the world. 
Come along, children, never 
mind those nasty eels : we 


“Out they Rushed.” 



102 


The Water-Babies. 


shall breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea, 
down to the sea! ” 

Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by the 
light of it—in the thousandth part of a second they were 
gone again—but he had seen them, he was certain of it 
—Three beautiful little white girls, with their arms twined 
round each other’s necks, floating down the torrent, as 
they sang, “ Down to the sea, down to the sea ! ” 

“ Oh stay ! Wait for me ! ” cried Tom ; but they were 
gone : yet he could hear their voices clear and sweet 
through the roar of thunder and water and wind, singing 
as they died away, “ Down to the sea ! ” 

“ Down to the sea ? ” said Tom ; “ everything is going 
to the sea, and I will go too. Good-by, trout.” But the 
trout were so busy gobbling worms that they never turned 
to answer him ; so that Tom was spared the pain of bid¬ 
ding them farewell. 

And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the 
bright flashes of the storm ; past tall birch-fringed rocks, 
which shone out one moment as clear as • day, and the 
next were dark as night; past dark hovers under swirling 
banks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking 
him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily^, for the 
fairies sent them home again with a tremendous scolding, 
for daring to meddle with a water-baby ; on through nar¬ 
row strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened 
and blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along 
deep reaches, where the white water-lilies tossed and 
flapped beneath the wind and hail ; past sleeping villages ; 
under dark bridge-arches, and away and away to the sea. 
And Tom could not stop, and did not care to stop; he 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


103 



“Past Sleeping Villages.” 


would see the great world below, and the salmon, and 
the breakers, and the wide wide sea. 

And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in 
the salmon river. 

And what sort of a river was it ? Was it like an Irish 
stream, winding through the brown bogs, where the wild 
ducks squatter up from among the white water-lilies, and 
the curlews flit to and fro, crying “ Tullie-wheep, mind 
your sheep; ” and Dennis tells you strange stories of the 
Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake which lies in the black 
peat pools, among the old pine-stems, and puts his head 
out at night to snap at the cattle as they come down to 
drink ?—But you must not believe all that Dennis tells 
you, mind ; for if you ask him : 

“ Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis ? ” 

“ Is it salmon, thin, your honor manes ? Salmon ? 
Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an’ ridgmens, shouldthering 
ache out of water, av’ ye’d but the luck to see thim.” 

Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise. 





04 


The Water-Babies. 


“ But there can’t be a salmon here, Dennis ! and, if 
you’ll but think, if one had come up last tide, he’d begone 
to the higher pools by now.” 

“ Shure thin, and your honor’s the thrue fisherman, and 
understands it all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye’d 
known the wather a thousand years! As I said, how 
could there be a fish here at all, just now ? ” 

“ But you said just now they were shouldering each 
other out of water? ” 

And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome 
sly, soft, sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye 
and answer with the prettiest smile : 

“ Shure, and didn’t I think your honor would like a 
pleasant answer ? ” 

So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the 
habit of giving pleasant answers: but, instead of being 
angry with him, you must remember that he is a poor 
Paddy, and knows no better; so you must just burst out 
laughing; and then he will burst out laughing too, and 
slave for you, and trot about after you, and show you good 
sport if he can—for he is an affectionate fellow, and as 
fond of sport as you are—and if he can’t, tell you fibs 
instead, a hundred an hour; and wonder all the while 
why poor ould Ireland does not prosper like England and 
Scotland, and some other places, where folk have taken 
up a ridiculous fancy that honesty is the best policy. 

Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarka¬ 
ble chiefly (at least, till this last year) for containing no 
salmon, as they have been all poached out by the enlight¬ 
ened peasantry, to prevent the Cythrawl Sassenach (which 
means you, my little dear, your kith and kin, and signifies 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 105 

much the same as the Chinese Fan Quei ) from coining 
bothering into Wales, with good tackle, and ready money, 
and civilization, and common honesty, and other like 
things of which the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever? 

Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see 
among the Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs 
are gray, under the wise new fishing-laws ?—when Win¬ 
chester apprentices shall covenant, as they did three hun¬ 
dred years ago, not to be made to eat salmon more than 
three days a week; and fresh-run fish shall be as plenti' 
ful under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-hoie at 
Christchurch; in the good time coming, when folks shall 
see that, of all Heaven’s gifts of food, the one to be pro¬ 
tected most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, 
who is generous enough to go down to the sea weighing 
five ounces, and to come back next year weighing five 
pounds without having cost the soil or the state one 
farthing ? 

Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur Clough 
drew in his “ Bothie ” :— 

“ Where over a ledge of granite 

Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended. . 

Beautiful there for the color derived from green rocks under ; 
Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising 
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the 
stillness. . . . 

Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and penda?it birch 
boughs . . . 

Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish 
such a stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, 




















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Among the Hampshire Water-Meadows. 









A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


whether she be roaring down in full spate, like coffee 
covered with scald cream, while the fish are swirling at 
your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat-race, or flashing 
up the cataract like silver arrows, out of the fiercest of 
the foam ; or whether the fall be dwindled to a single 
thread, and the shingle below be as white and dusty as a 
turnpike road, while the salmon huddle together in one 
dark cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their 
time till the rain creeps back again off the sea. You will 
not care much, if you have eyes and brains; for you will 
lay down your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyes 
the beauty of that glorious place; and listen to the water- 
ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes 
come down to drink and look up at you with their great 
soft trustful eyes, as much as to say, “You could not 
have the heart to shoot at us ? ” and then, if you have 
sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a gilly 
who lies basking on the stone beside you. He will tell 
you no fibs, my little man ; for he is a Scotchman, and 
fears God, and not the priest; and, as you talk with him, 
you will be surprised more and more at his knowledge, 
his sense, his humor, his courtesy; and you will find out 
—unless you have found it out before—that a man may 
learn from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman 
than if he had been brought up in all the drawing-rooms 
in London. 

No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harth- 
over. It was such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick; 
Bewick, who was born and bred upon them. A full hun¬ 
dred yards broad it was, sliding on from broad pool to 
broad shallow, and broad shallow to broad pool, over 






io8 


The Water-Babies. 


great fields of shingle, under oak and ash coverts, past 
low cliffs of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair 
parks, and a great house of gray stone, and brown moors 
above, and here and there against the sky the smoking 
chimney of a colliery. You must look at Bewick to see 
just what it was like, for he has drawn it a hundred times 
with the care and the love of a true north countryman; 
and, even if you do not care about the salmon river, you 
ought, like all good boys, to know your Bewick. 

At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very sensibly 
he put it too, as he was wont to do : 

“If they want to describe a finished young gentleman 
in France, I hear, they say of him, 1 II sait son Rabelais .’ 
But if I want to describe one in England, I say, ‘ He 
knows his Bewick .’ And I think that is the higher com¬ 
pliment.” 

But Tom thought nothing about what the river was like. 
All his fancy was, to get down to the wide, wide sea. 

And after a while he came to a place where the river 
spread out into broad still shallow reaches, so wide that 
little Tom, as he put his head out of the water, could 
hardly see across. 

And there he stopped. He got a little frightened. 
“ This must be the sea,” he thought. “ What a wide place 
it is ! If I go on into it I shall surely lose my way, or 
some strange thing will bite me. I will stop here and 
look out for the otter, or the eels, or some one to tell me 
where I shall go.” 

So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack 
of the rock, just where the river opened out into the wide 
shallows, and watched for some one to tell him his way: 



A Fairy Tale for a La?id-Baby. 


109 


but the otter and the eels were gone on miles and miles 
down the stream. 

There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite tired 
with his night’s journey ; and, when he woke, the stream 
was clearing to a beautiful amber hue, though it was still 
very high. And after a while he saw a sight which made 
him jump up ; for he knew in a moment it was one of the 
things which he had come to look for. 

Such a fish ! ten times as big as the biggest trout, and 
a hundred times as big as Tom, sculling up the stream 
past him, as easily as Tom had sculled down. 

Such a fish ! shining silver from head to tail, and here 
and there a crimson dot; with a grand hooked nose and 
grand curling lip, and a grand bright eye, looking round 
him as proudly as a king, and surveying the water right and 
left as if all belonged to him. Surely he must be the sal¬ 
mon, the king of all the fish. 

Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into a 
hole; but he need not have been ; for salmon are all true 
gentlemen, and, like true gentlemen, they look noble and 
proud enough, and yet, like true gentlemen, they never 
harm or quarrel with any one, but go about their own busi¬ 
ness, and leave rude fellows to themselves. 

The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then 
went on without minding him, with a swish or two of his 
tail which made the stream boil again. And in a few 
minutes came another, and then four or five, and so on ; 
and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up the cataract 
with strong strokes of their silver tails, now and then 
leaping clean out of water and up over a rock, shining 
gloriously for a moment in the bright sun ; while Tom was 



no 


The Water-Babies. 




so delighted that he could have watched them all day 
long. 



“The King op all the Fish.” 


And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; but 
he came slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed 







A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


lit 


very anxious and busy. And Tom saw that he was help¬ 
ing another salmon, an especially handsome one, who had 
not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure silver 
from nose to tail. 

“ My dear,” said the great fish to his companion, “ you 
really look dreadfully tired, and you must not over-exert 
yourself at first. Do rest yourself behind this rock ; ” 
and he shoved her gently with his nose, to the rock where 
Tom sat. 

You must know that this was the salmon’s wife. For 
salmon, like other true gentlemen, always choose their 
lady, and love her, and are true to her, and take care of 
her and work for her, and fight for her, as every true gen¬ 
tleman ought; and are not like vulgar chub and roach and 
pike, who have no high feelings, and take no care of their 
wives. 

Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely one 
moment, as if he was going to bite him. 

“ What do you want here ? ” he said, very fiercely. 

“ Oh, don’t hurt me ! ” cried Tom. “ I only want to 
look at you ; you are so handsome.” 

“ Ah ? ” said the salmon, very stately but very civilly. 
“ I really beg your pardon ; I see what you are, my little 
dear. I have met one or two creatures like you before, 
and found them very agreeable and well-behaved. In¬ 
deed, one of them showed me a great kindness lately, 
which I hope to be able to repay. I hope we shall not 
be in your way here. As soon as this lady is rested, we 
shall proceed on our journey.” 

What a well-bred old salmon he was ! 

“ So you have seen things like me before ? ” asked Tom. 



112 


The Water-Babies. 


“ Several times, my, dear. Indeed, it was only last 
night that one at the river’s mouth came and warned me 
and my wife of some new stake-nets which had got into 
the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, and 
showed us the way round them, in the most charmingly 
obliging way.” 

“ So there are babies in the sea ? ” cried Tom, and 
clapped his little hands. “ Then I shall have some one to 
play with there ? How delightful ! ” 

“ Were there no babies up this stream ? ” asked the 
lady salmon. 

“No! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three 
last night; but they were gone in an instant, down to the 
sea. So I went too; for I had nothing to play with but 
caddises and dragon-flies and trout.” 

“ Ugh ! ” cried the lady, “ what low company! ” 

“ My dear, if he has been in low company, he has cer¬ 
tainly not learnt their low manners,” said the salmon. 

“ No, indeed, poor little dear : but how sad for him to 
live among such people as caddises, who have actually six 
legs, the nasty things ; and dragon-flies, too! why they are 
not even good to eat; for I tried them once, and they are 
all hard and empty; and, as for trout, every one knows 
what they are.” Whereon she curled up her lip, and 
looked dreadfully scornful, while her husband curled up 
his too, till he looked as proud as Alcibiades. 

“ Why do you dislike the trout so ? ” asked Tom. 

“ My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can help 
it; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours who do us 
no credit. A great many years ago they were just like us : 
but they were so lazy, and cowardly, and greedy, that in- 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


113 


stead of going down to the sea every year to see the 
world and grow strong and fat, they choose to stay and 
poke about in the little streams and eat worms and grubs ; 
and they are very properly punished for it; for they have 
grown ugly and brown and spotted and small; and are 
actually so degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our 
children.” 

“ And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance with us 
again,” said the lady. “ Why I have actually known one 
of them propose to a lady salmon, the impudent little 
creature.” 

“I should hope,” said the gentleman, “that there are 
very few ladies of our race who would degrade themselves 
by listening to such a creature for an instant. If I saw 
such a thing happen, I should consider it my duty to put 
them both to death upon the spot.” So the old salmon 
said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain; and what 
is more, he would have done it too. For you must know, 
no enemies are so bitter against each other as those who 
are of the same race ; and a salmon looks on a trout, as 
some great folks look on some little folks, as something 
just too much like himself to be tolerated. 



“ Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 
Our meddling intellect 
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things 
We murder to dissect. 

Enough of science and of art: 

Close up these barren leaves ; 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives.” 


Wordsworth. 


CHAPTER IV. 


So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of 
the wicked old otter; and Tom went down, but slowly 
and cautiously, coasting along the shore. He was many 
days about it, for it was many miles down to the sea; and 
perhaps he would never have found his way, if the fairies 
had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or 
feeling their gentle hands. 

And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It 
was a clear still September night, and the moon shone so 
brightly down through the water, that he could not sleep, 
though he shut his eyes as tight as possible. So at last 
he came up to the top, and sat upon a little point of rock, 
and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and wondered 
what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And 
he watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the 
black heads of the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and 
listened to the owl’s hoot, and the snipe’s bleat, and the 
fox’s bark, and the otter’s laugh; and smelt the soft per¬ 
fume of the birches, and the wafts of heather honey off 
the grouse moor far above; and felt very happy, though 
he could not well tell why. You of course, would have been 


The Water-Babies. 


116 


very cold sitting there on a September night, without the 
least bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a 
water-baby, and therefore felt cold no more than a fish. 

Suddenly, he; saw a beautiful sight. A bright red light 
moved along the river-side, and threw down into the water 



“ Sat upon a Little Point of Rock.” 


a long tap-root of flame. Tom, curious little rogue that 
he was, must needs go and see what it was; so he swam 
to the shore, and met the light as it stopped over a shal¬ 
low run at the edge of a low rock. 

And there, underneath the light, lay five or six great 
salmon, looking up at the flame with their great goggle 
eyes, and wagging their tails, as if they were very much 
pleased at it. 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 117 

Tom came to the top, to look at thi£ wonderful light 
nearer, and made a splash. 

And he heard a voice say : 

“There was a fish rose.” 

He did not know what the words meant : but he seemed 
to know the sound of them, and to know the voice which 
spoke them ; and he saw on the bank three great two- 
legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring and 
sputtering, and another a long pole. And he knew that 
they were men, and was frightened, and crept into a hole 
in the rock, from which he could see what went on. 

The man with the torch bent down over the water, and 
looked earnestly in ; and then he said : 

“Tak’ that muckle fellow, lad ; he’s ower fifteen punds; 
and haud your hand steady.” 

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and 
longed to warn the foolish salmon, who kept staring up at 
the light as if he was bewitched. But before he could 
make up his mind, down came the pole through the water; 
there was a fearful splash and struggle, and Tom saw 
that the poor salmon was speared right through, and was 
lifted out of the water. 

And then, from behind, there sprang on these three 
men three other men; and there were shouts, and blows, 
and words which Tom recollected to have heard before ; 
and he shuddered and turned sick at them now, for he 
felt somehow that they were strange, and ugly, and wrong, 
and horrible. And it all began to come back to him. 
They were men; and they were fighting ; savage, desper¬ 
ate, up-and-down fighting, such as Tom had seen too 
many times before, 




“The Man with the Torch Bent Down over tre Water,” 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 119 

And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim 
away ; and was very glad that he was a water-baby, and 
had nothing to do any more with horrid dirty men, with 
foul clothes on their backs, and foul words on their lips ; 
but he dared not stir out of his hole : while the rock shook 
over his head with the trampling and struggling of the 
keepers and the poachers. 

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and a 
frightful flash, and a hissing, and all was still. 

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the men ; 
he who held the light in his hand. Into the swift river he 
sank, and rolled over and over in the current. Torn heard 
the men above run along, seemingly looking for him ; but 
he drifted down into the deep hole below, and there lay 
quite still, and they could not find him. 

Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then he 
peeped out, and saw the man lying. At last he screwed 
up his courage and swam down to him. “ Perhaps,” he 
thought, “ the water has made him fall asleep, as it did 
me.” 

Then he went nearer. He grew more and more cu¬ 
rious, he could not tell why. He must go and look at him. 
He would go very quietly, of course; so he swam round 
and round him, closer and closer; and, as he did not 
stir, at last he came quite close and looked him in the 
face. 

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see every 
feature ; and, as he saw, he recollected, bit by bit, it was 
his old master, Grimes. 

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he could. 

“ Oh dear irje ! ” he thought, “ now he will turn into a 



120 


'The Water-Babies. 


water-baby. What a nasty troublesome one he will be ! 
And perhaps he will find me out, and beat me again.” 

So he went up the river again a little way, and lay there 
the rest of the night under an alder root; but, when morn¬ 
ing came, he longed to go down again to the big pool, 
and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned into a water- 
baby yet. 

So he went very carefully, peeping round all the rocks, 
and hiding under all the roots. Mr. Grimes lay there 
still; he had not turned into a water-baby. In the after, 
noon Tom went back again. He could not rest till he 
had found out what had become of Mr. Grimes. But 
this time Mr. Grimes was gone ; and Tom made up his 
mind that he was turned into a water-baby. 

He might have made himself easy, poor little man ; Mr. 
Grimes did not turn into a water-baby, or anything like 
one at all. But he did not make himself easy; and a 
long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes sud¬ 
denly in some deep pool. He could not know that the 
fairies had carried him away, and put him, where they put 
everything which falls into the water, exactly where it 
ought to be. But, do you know, what had happened to 
Mr. Grimes had such an effect on him that he never 
poached salmon any more. And it is quite certain that, 
when a man becomes a confirmed poacher, the only way 
to cure him is to put him under water for twenty-four 
hours, like Grimes. So when you grow to be a big man, 
do you behave as all honest fellows should ; and never 
touch a fish or a head of game which belongs to another 
man without his express leave ; and then people will call 
you a gentleman, and treat you like one j and perhaps 



A Fairy Lale for a Land-Baby. 


121 


give you good sport : instead of hitting you into the river, 
or calling you a poaching snob. 

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of staying 
near Grimes : and as he went, all the vale looked sad. 
The red and yellow leaves showered down into the river; 
the flies and beetles were all dead and gone ; the chill 
autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and sometimes spread 
itself so thickly on the river that he could not see his way. 
But he felt his way instead, following the flow of the 
stream, day after day, past great bridges, past boats and 



barges, past the great town, with its wharfs, and mills, and 
tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in 
the stream; and now and then he ran against their 
hawsers, and wondered what they were, and peeped out, 
and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking their 
pipes; and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid 
of being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep 
once more. He did not know that the fairies were close 









122 


The Water-Babies. 


to him always, shutting the sailors’ eyes lest they should 
see him, and turning him aside from millraces, and sewer- 
mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. Poor little 
fellow, it was a dreary journey for him: and more than 
once he longed to be back in Yendale, playing with the 
trout in the bright summer sun. But it could not be. 
What has been once can never come over again. And 
people can be little babies, even water-babies, only once 
in their lives. 

Besides, people who make up their minds to go and 
see the world, as Tom did, must needs find it a weary 
journey. Lucky for them if they do not lose heart and 
stop half-way, instead of going on bravely to the end as 
Tom did. For then they will remain neither boys nor 
men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring : having 
learnt a great deal too much, and yet not enough; and 
sown their wild oats, without having the advantage of 
reaping them. 

But Tom was always a brave, determined, little 
English bull-dog, who never knew when he was beaten ; 
and on and on he held, till he saw a long way off the red 
buoy through the fog. And then he found to his surprise, 
the stream turned round, and running up inland. 

It was the tide, of course : but Tom knew nothing of 
the tide. He only knew that in a minute more the water, 
which had been fresh, turned salt all round him. And 
then there came a change over him. He felt as 
strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run cham¬ 
pagne ; and gave, he did not know why, three 'skips out 
of the water, a yard high, and head over heels, just as the 
salmon do when they first touch the noble rich salt water, 



A Fairy Talc for a Land-Baby. 


123 


which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all liv¬ 
ing things. 

He did not care now for the tide being against him. 
The red buoy was in sight, dancing in the open sea ; and 



“ Head over Heels.” 


to the buoy he would go, and to it he went. He passed 
great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and rushing in 
after the shrimps, but he never heeded them, or they 
him; and once he passed a great black shining seal, who 
was coming in after the mullet. The seal put his 
head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him, look¬ 
ing exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray pate. 
And Tom, instead of being frightened, said, “ How d’ye 
do, sir ; what a beautiful place the sea is ! ” And the old 
seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked at him with his 




124 


The Water-Babies. 


soft sleepy winking eyes, and said, Good tide to you, my 
little man ; are you looking for your brothers and sisters ? 
I passed them all at play outside.” 

“ Oh, then,” said Tom, “I shall have playfellows at last,” 
and he swam on to the buoy, and got upon it (for he was 
quite out of breath) and sat there, and looked round for 
water-babies: but there were none to be seen. 

The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and blew 
the fog away ; and the little waves danced for joy around 
the buoy, and the old buoy danced with them. Ihe shad¬ 
ows of the clouds ran races over the bright blue bay, and 
yet never caught each other up; and the breakers plunged 
merrily upon the wide white sands, and jumped up over 
the rocks, to see what the green fields inside were like, 
and tumbled down and broke themselves all to pieces, and 
never minded it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped 
up again. And the terns hovered over Tom like huge 
white dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed 
like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and 
legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and whistled 
sweet and wild. And Tom looked and looked, and lis¬ 
tened; and he would have been very happy, if he could only 
have seen the water-babies. Then when the tide turned, he 
left the buoy, and swam round and round in search of them : 
but in vain. Sometimes he thought he heard them laugh¬ 
ing . but itwas only the laughter of the ripples. And some¬ 
times he thought he saw them at the bottom : but it was. 
only white and pink shells. And once he was sure he had 
found one, for he saw two bright eyes peeping out of the 
sand. So he dived down, and began scraping the sand 
away, and cried, “Don’t hide; I do want some one to 





A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


125 



play with so much!” And out jumped a great turbot 
with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped away 
along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over. And he sat 
down at the bottom of the sea, and 
cried salt tears from sheer disap¬ 
pointment. 

To have come all this ^ 

^ v - 

way, and faced 
so many dan¬ 
gers, and yet 
water-babies! 
did see m 

even little ba- j 
, 1 

they want 

it, and work- { 

little man, as 

some day. ! 

And Tom 

long d a y s, 


to find no 
How hard ! Well, it 
hard: but people, 
bies, cannot have all 
without waiting for 
ing for it too, my 
you will find out 


sat upon the buoy 
1 mg weeks, look¬ 
ing out to sea, 
and wondering 

o 

when t he 
water-babies 
would come 
back; and yet they 
never came. 

Then he began to ask 


1-0 




all the strange things 


which came in out of the 
sea if they had seen any; 
and some said “ Yes,” and some said nothing at all. 


“Tom Looked and Looked, and 
Listened.” 



126 


The Water-Babies. 


He asked the bass and the pollock ; but they were so 
greedy after the shrimps that they did not care to answer 
him a word. 

Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, 
floating along, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom 
said, “ Where do you come from, you pretty creatures ? 
and have you seen the water-babies ? ” 

And the sea-snails answered, “ Whence we come we 
know not ; and whither we are going, who can tell ? We 
float out our life in the mid-ocean, with the warm sun¬ 
shine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream below ; 
and that is enough for us. Yes; perhaps we have seen 
the water-babies. We have seen many strange things as 
we sail along.” And they floated away, the happy stupid 
things, and all went ashore upon the sands. 

Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as a fat 
pig cut in half ; and he seemed to have been cut in half 
too, and squeezed in a clothes-press till he was flat; bin to 
all his big body and big fins he had only a little rabbit’s 
mouth, no bigger than Tom's ; and, when Tom questioned 
him, he answered in a little squeaky feeble voice : 

“ I'm sure I don’t know ; I’ve lost my way. I meant to 
go to the Chesapeake, and I’m afraid I’ve got wrong 
somehow. Dear me ! it was all by following that pleasant 
warm water. I’m sure I’ve lost my way.” 

And, when Tom asked him again, he could only answer, 
“I’ve lost my way. Don’t talk to me ; I want to think. 

But, like a good many other people, the more he tried 
to think the less he could think ; and Tom saw him blun¬ 
dering about all day, till the coast-guardsmen saw his big 
fin above the water, and rowed out, and struck a boat-hook 



A Fai?y Tale for a Land-Baby. 


127 

into him, and took him away. They took him up to the 
town and showed him for a penny a head, and made a 
good day’s work of it. But of course Tom did not know 
that. 

Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as they 
went—papas, and mammas, and little children—and all 
quite smooth and shiny, because the fairies French-polish 
them every morning; and they sighed so softly as they 
came by, that Tom took courage to speak to them : but all 
they answered was, “Hush, hush, hush; for that was all 
they had learnt to say. 



“Struck a Boat-Hook into Him.” 


And then there came a shoal of basking sharks, some 
of them as long as a boat, and Tom was frightened at 
them. But they were very lazy good-natured fellows, not 
greedy tyrants, like white sharks and blue sharks and 
ground sharks and hammer-heads, who eat men, or saw ¬ 
fish and threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old 






128 


The Water-Babies. 


whales. They came ancl rubbed their great sides against 
the buoy, and lay basking in the sun with their backfins 
out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never could get 
them to speak. They had eaten so many herrings that they 
were quite stupid; and Tom was glad when a collier brig 
came by and frightened them all away; for they did smell 
most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold his nose tight 
as long as they were there. 

And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a 
ribbon of pure silver with a sharp head and very long 
teeth; but it seemed very sick and sad. Sometimes it 
rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashed away glit¬ 
tering like white fire; and then it lay sick again and 
motionless. 

“Where do you come from ?” asked Tom. “ And why 
are you so sick and sad ? ” 

“I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sand banks 
fringed with pines ; where the great owl-rays leap and 
flap, like giant bats, upon the tide. But I wandered 
north and north, upon the treacherous warm gulf-stream, 
till I met with the cold icebergs, afloat in the mid ocean. 
So I got tangled among the icebergs, and chilled with 
their frozen breath. But the water-babies helped me from 
among them, and set me free again. And now I am 
mending every day; but I am very sick and sad ; and 
perhaps I shall never get home again to play with the owl- 
rays any more.” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Tom. “ And you have seen water-babies ? 
Have you seen any near here ? ” 

“Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should 
have been eaten bv a great black porpoise.” 




A Fairy Tale for a La7id-Baby. 


129 



How vexatious! The water-babies close to him, and 
yet he could not find one. 

And then he left the buoy, and used to go along the 
sands and round the rocks, and come out in the night— 
like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold’s beautiful, 
beautiful poem, which you must learn by heart some 
day—and sit upon a point of rock, among the shining sea¬ 
weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and call for 
the water-babies; but he never heard a voice call in 
return. And at last, with his 


But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. 
It was not a water-baby, alas ! but it was a lobster ; and 
a very distinguished lobster he was; for he had live bar¬ 
nacles on his claws, which is a great mark of distinction in 
lobsterdom, and no more to be bought for money than a 
good conscience or the Victoria Cross. ; 

Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was 
mightily taken with this one ; for he thought him the most 










The Water-Babied. 


130 

curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had ever seen ; and 
there he was not far wrong ; for all the ingenious men, 
and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men, in the 
world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the 
bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled 
into one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a 
lobster. 

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and 
Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the sea-weed 
with his knobbed claw, while he cut up salads with his 
jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after smell¬ 
ing at them, like a monkey. And always the little bar¬ 
nacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water, 
and came in for their share of whatever there was for 
dinner. 

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired him¬ 
self off—snap ! like the leap-frogs which you make out of a 
goose’s breast-bone. Certainly he took the most wonder¬ 
ful shots, and backwards, too. ' For, if he wanted to go into 
a narrow crack ten yards off, what do you think he did ? 
If he had gone in head foremost, of course he could not 
have turned round. So he used to turn his tail to it and 
lay his long horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips 
(and nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight 
down his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till 
they almost came out of their sockets, and then made 
ready, present, fire, snap !—and away he went, pop into 
the hole ; and peeped out and twiddled his whiskers, as 
much as to say, “ You couldn’t do that.” 

Tom asked him about water-babies. “ Yes, ” he said. 
He had seen them often. But he did not think much of 




A Fairy 1 'ale for a Land-Baby . 131 

them. They were meddlesome little creatures, that went 
about helping fish and shells which got into scrapes. Well, 
for his part, he should be ashamed to be helped by little 
soft creatures that had not even a shell on their backs. 
He had lived quite long enough in the world to take care 
of himself. 

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not 
very civil to Tom ; and you will hear how he had to alter 
his mind before he was done, as *conceited people gener¬ 
ally have. But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely, that 
he could not quarrel with him ; and they used to sit in 
holes in the rocks, and chat for hours. 

And about this time there happened to Tom a very 
strange and important adventure—so important, indeed, 
that he was very near never finding the water-babies at 
all; and I am sure you would have been sorry for that. 

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white lady 
all this while. At least, here she comes, looking like a 
clean, white, good little darling, as she always was, and 
always will be. For it befell in the pleasant short 
December days, when the wind always blows from the 
southwest, till old Father Christmas comes and spreads 
the great white table-cloth, ready for little boys and girls 
to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs—it 
befell (to go on) in the pleasant December days, that Sir 
John was so busy hunting that nobody at home could get 
a word out of him. Four days a week he hunted, and 
very good sport he had: and the other two he went to 
the bench and the board of guardians, and very good jus¬ 
tice he did; and, when he got home in time, he dined at 
five ; foi he hated this absurd new fashion of dining at 





i3 2 


The Water-Babies. 


eight in the hunting season, which forces a man to make 
interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon 
as he comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep 
in an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiff and tired,, for two 
or three hours before he can get his dinner like a gentle¬ 
man. And do you be like Sir John, my dear little man, 
when you are your own master; and, if you want either 
to read hard or ride hard, stick to the good old Cam¬ 
bridge hours of breakfast at eight and dinner at five, by 
which you may get two days work out of one. But, of 
course, if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run 
him till dark, and leave off twenty miles from home, why 
you must wait for your dinner till you can get it, as better 
men than you have done. Only see that, if you go hun¬ 
gry, your horse does not; but give him his warm gruel 
and beer, and take him gently home, remembering that 
good horses don’t grow on the hedge like blackberries. 

It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, hunt¬ 
ing all day, and dining at five, fell asleep every evening, 
and snored so terribly that all the windows in Harthover 
shook, and the soot fell down the chimneys. Whereon 
My Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of 
him than a song out of a dead nightingale, determined to 
go off and leave him, and the doctor, and Captain 
Swinger, the agent, to snore in concert every evening to 
their hearts’ content. So she started for the seaside with 
all the children, in order to put herself and them into con¬ 
dition by mild applications of iodine. She might as well 
have stayed at home and used Parry’s liquid horse- 
blister, for there was plenty of it in the stables ; and then 
she would have saved her money, and saved the chance, 



A Fairy 1 ’ale for a Land-Baby. 


J 33 

also, of making all the children ill instead of well (as hun¬ 
dreds are made), by taking them to some nasty smelling, 
undrained lodging, and then wondering how they caught 
scarlatina and 
diphtheria: but 
people won’t be 
wise enough to 
understand that 
till they are 
dead of bad 
smells, and then 
it will be too ; 
late; besides, 
you see, Sir 
John did cer¬ 
tainly snore very loud. 

But where she went to 
nobody must know, for 
fear young ladies should 
begin to fancy that there 

, , . ,, . “ Fell Asleep Every Evening and 

are water-babies there! Snored so Terribly.” 

and so hunt and howk 

after them (besides raising the price of lodgings), and 
keep them in aquariums, as the ladies of Pompeii (as you 
may see by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages. 
But nobody ever heard that they starved the Cupids, or 
let them die of dirt and neglect, as English young ladies 
do by the poor sea-beasts. So nobody must know where 
My Lady went. Letting water-babies die is as bad as tak¬ 
ing singing birds’ eggs; for, though there are thousands, 
ay, millions of both of them in the world, yet there is not 
one too many. 








!34 


The Water-Babies. 


Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the very 
rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend, the lobster, 
there walked one day the little white lady, Ellie herself, 
and with her a very wise man indeed—Professor Ptthmlln- 
sprts. 

His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he was 
born at Curasao (of course you have learnt your geogra¬ 
phy, and therefore know why) | and his father a Pole, 
and therefore he was brought up at Petropaulowski (of 
course you have learnt your modern politics, and there¬ 
fore know why) : but for all that, he was as thorough an 
Englishman as ever coveted his neighbor’s goods. And 
his name, as I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts, which 
is a very ancient and noble Polish name. 

He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and chief 
pro fesso r of Necrobioneopaloeonthydrochtlionanthropopithek- 
ology in the new university which the king of the Canni¬ 
bal Islands had founded ; and being a member of the 
Acclimatization Society, he had come here to collect all 
the nasty things which he could find on the coast of 
England, and turn them loose round the Cannibal 
Islands, because they had not nasty things enough there 
to eat what they left. 

But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little old 
gentleman ; and very fond of children (for he was not the 
least a cannibal himself) ; and very good to all the world 
as long as it was good to him. Only one fault he had, 
which cock-robins have likewise, as you may see if you 
look out of the nursery window—that, when any one else 
found a curious worm, he would hop round them, and 
peck them, and set up his tail, and bristle up his feathers, 




“Ellie and He were Walking on the Rocks.” 


i 3 6 


The Water-Babies. 


just as a cock-robin would ; and declare that he found the 
worm first; and that it was his worm ; and, if not, that 
then it was not a worm at all. 

He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, or 
somewhere or other (if you don’t care where, nobody else 
does), and had made acquaintance with him, and become 
very fond of his children. Now, Sir John knew nothing 
about sea-cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fish¬ 
monger sent him good fish for dinner; and My Lady knew 
as little: but she thought it proper that the children 
should know something. For in the stupid old times, you 
must understand, children were taught to know one thing, 
and to know it well; but in these enlightened new times 
they are taught to know a little about everything, and to 
know it all ill; which is a great deal pleasanter and easier, 
and therefore quite right. 

So Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was 
showing her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful 
and curious things which are to be seen there. But little 
Ellie was not satisfied with them at all. She liked much 
better to play with live children, or even with dolls, which 
she could pretend were alive ; and at last she said hon¬ 
estly, “ I don’t care about all these things, because they 
can’t play with me, or talk to me. If there were little 
children now in the water, as there used to be, and I could 
see them, I should like that.” 

“ Children in the water, you strange little duck ? ” said 
the professor. 

“ Yes,” said Ellie. “ I know there used to be children 
in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw 
them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


1 37 


a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her and 
one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and 
playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells ; and 
it is called 4 The Triumph of Galatea and there is a burn¬ 
ing mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the 
great staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a 
baby, and dreamt about it a hundred times ; and it is so 
beautiful, that it must be true.” 



“There used to be Children in the Water, and Mermaids too.” 


But the professor had not the .least notion of allowing 
that things were true, merely because people thought 
them beautiful. For at that rate, he said, the Baltas 
would be quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat their 



The Water-Babies. 


13S 

grandpapas, because they thought it an ugly thing to put 
them underground. The professor, indeed, went further, 
and held that no man was forced to believe anything to be 
true, but what he could see, hear, taste, or handle. 

He held very strange theories about a good many things. 
He had even got up once at the British Association, and 
declared that apes had hippopotamus majors in their 
brains just as men have. Which was a shocking thing to 
say; for, if it were so, what would become of the faith, 
hope, and charity of immortal millions ? You may think 
that there are other more important differences between 
you and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make 
machines, and know right from wrong, and say your 
prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a 
child’s fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be depended on 
but the great hippopotamus test. If you have a hippopot¬ 
amus major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had 
four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the apes of 
all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discov¬ 
ered in one single ape’s brain, nothing will save 
your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- 
great-great-greater-greatest-grandmother from having been 
an ape too. No, my dear little man ; always remember 
that the one true, certain, final, and all-important differ¬ 
ence between you and an ape is, that you have a hippo¬ 
potamus major in your brain, and it has none ; and that, 
therefore, to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong 
and dangerous thing, at which every one will be very 
much shocked, as we may suppose they were at the pro¬ 
fessor.—Though really, after all, it don’t much matter; 
because—as Lord Dundreary and others would put it— 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


139 


nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains; so 
if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape’s brain, why 
it would not be one, you know, but something else. 

But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even 
further than that ; for he had read at the British Associa¬ 
tion at Melbourne, Australia, in the year 1999, a paper 
which assured every one who found himself the better or 
wiser for the news, that there were not, never had been, 
and could not be, any rational or half-rational beings 
except men, anywhere, anywhen, or anyhow ; that nymphs, 
satyrs, fauns, inui, dwarfs, trolls, elves, gnomes, fairies , 
brow?iies, nixes, wilis, kobolds, leprechaunes, cluricaunes, 
banshees, will-o'-the-wisps, follets, lutins, magots, goblins, 
afrits, marids, jinns, ghouls, peris, deevs, angels, archangels, 
imps, bogies, or worse, were nothing at all, and pure bosh 
and wind. And he had to get up very early in the 
morning to prove that, and to eat his breakfast overnight; 
but he did it, at least to his own satisfaction. Whereon a 
certain great divine, and a very clever divine was he, called 
him a regular Sadducee; and probably he was quite right. 
Whereon the professor, in return, called him a regular 
Pharisee ; and probably he was quite right too. But they 
did not quarrel in the least; for, when men are men of the 
world, hard words run off them like water off a duck’s 
back. So the professor and the divine met at dinner that 
evening, and sat together on the sofa afterwards for an 
hour, and talked over the state of female labor on the 
antarctic continent (for nobody talks shop after his claret), 
and each vowed that the other was the best company he 
ever met in his life. What an advantage it is to be men 
of the world J 



140 


The Water-Babies. 


From all which you may guess lhat the professor was 
not the least of little Elbe’s opinion. So he gave her a 
succinct compendium of his famous paper at the British 
Association, in a form suited for the youthful mind. But, 
as we have gone over his arguments against water-babies 
once already, which is once too often, we will not repeat 
them here. 

Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; for, 
instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts’ 
arguments, she only asked the same question over again. 

“But why are there not water-babies?” 

I trust and hope that it was because the professor trod 
at that moment on the edge of a very sharp mussel, and 
hurt one of his corns sadly, that he answered quite sharply, 
forgetting that he was a scientific man, and therefore ought 
to have known that he couldn’t know; and that he was a 
logician, and therefore ought to have known that he could 
not prove a universal negative—I say, I trust and hope it 
was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the professor 
answered quite sharply : 

“ Because there ain’t.” 

. Which was not even good English, my dear little boy; 
for, as you must know from Aunt Agitate’s Arguments, the 
professor ought to have said, if he was so angry as to say 
anything of the kind—Because there are not: or are none : 
or are none of them; or (if he had been reading Aunt 
Agitate too) because they do not exist. 

And he groped with his net under the weeds so violentlv, 
that, as it befell, he caught poor little Tom. 

He felt the net very heavy ; and lifted it out quickly, 
with Tom all entangled in the meshes, 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


141 


“ Dear me ! ” he cried. “ What a large pink Holo- 
thurian; with hands, too ! It must be connected with 
Synapta.” 

And he took him out. 

“ It has actually eyes !” he cried. “ Why, it must be a 
Cephalopod ! This is most extraordinary !” 

“ No, I ain’t!” cried Tom, as loud as he could; for he 
did not like to be called bad names. 

“ It is a water-baby! ” cried Elbe ; and of course it was. 

“ Water-fiddlesticks, my dear ! ” said the professor; and 
he turned away sharply. 

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby : and 
he had said a moment ago that there were none. What 
was he to do ? 

He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom 
home in a bucket. He would not have put him in spirits. 
Of course not. He would have kept him alive, and 
petted him (for he was a very kind old gentleman), and 
written a book about him, and given him two long names, 
of which the first would have said a little about Tom, and 
the second all about himself; for of course he would have 
called him Hydrotecnon Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some 
other long name like that; for they are forced to call 
everything by long names now, because they have used 
up all the short ones, ever since they took to making nine 
species out of one. But—what would all the learned men 
say to him after his speech at the British Association ? 
And what would Ellie say, after what he had just told 
her ? 

There was a wise old heathen once, who said, “ Maxima 
debetur pueris reverentia ”—The greatest reverence is 



142 


The Water-Babies. 


due to children ; that is, that grown people should never 
say or do anything wrong before children, lest they should 
set them a bad example.—Cousin Cramchild says it 
means, “ The greatest respectfulness is expected from 
little boys.” But he was raised in a country where little 
boys are not expected to be respectful, because all of 
them are as good as the President:—Well, every one 
knows his own concerns best; so perhaps they are. But 
poor Cousin Cramchild, to do him justice, not being of 
that opinion, and having a moral mission, and being no 
scholar to speak of, and hard up for an authority—why, 
it was a very great temptation for him. But some people, 
and I am afraid the professor was one of them, interpret 
that in a more strange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, 
topsy-turvy, inside-out, behind-before fashion than even 
Cousin Cramchild ; for they make it mean, that you must 
show your respect for children, by never confessing your¬ 
self in the wrong to them, even if you know that you are 
so, lest they should lose confidence in their elders. 

Now, if the professor had said to Elbe, “Yes, my dar¬ 
ling, it is a water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is; 
and it shows how little I know of the wonders of nature, 
in spite of forty years’ honest labor. I was just telling 
you that there could be no such creatures ; and, behold! 
here is one come to confound my conceit and show me 
that Nature can do, and has done, beyond all that man’s 
poor fancy can imagine. So, let us thank the Maker, and 
Inspirer, and Lord of Nature for all His wonderful and 
glorious works, and try and find out something about this 
one ; ”—I think that, if the professor had said that, little 
Elbe would have believed him more firmly, and respected 



i43 


A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 



And Lay Quite Still.” 


him more deeply, and loved him better, than ever she 
had done before. But he was of a different opinion. He 
hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and yet 
he half wished he never had .caught him ; and at last he 
quite longed to get rid of him. So he turned away and 
poked Tom with his finger, for want of anything better to 
do; and said carelessly, “ My dear little maid, you must 
have dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so 
full of them.” 

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeak¬ 
able fright all the while ; and had kept as quiet as he could, 
though he was called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod; 
for it was fixed in his little head that if a man with clothes 
on caught him, he might put clothes on him too, and 
make a dirty black chimney-sweep of him again. But, 
when the professor poked him, it was more than he could 
bear; and, between fright and rage, he turned to bay as 











144 


The Water-Babies. 


valiantly as a mouse in a corner and bit the professor’s 
finger till it bled. 

“ Oh ! ah ! yah !” cried he; and glad of an excuse to be 
rid of Tom, dropped him on to the seaweed, and thence 
he dived into the water and was gone in a moment. 

“ But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!” cried 
Ellie. “Ah, it is gone!” And she jumped down off the 
rock to try and catch Tom before he slipped into the 
sea. 

Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang dowm, 
she slipped, and fell some six feet with her head on a 
sharp rock, and lay quite still. 

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, 
and called to her, and cried over her, for he loved her 
very much : but she would not waken at all. So he took 
her up in his arms and carried her to her governess, and 
they all went home ; and little Ellie was put to bed, and 
lay there quite still; only now and then she woke up and 
called out about the water-baby : but no one knew what 
she meant, and the professor did not tell, for he was 
ashamed to tell. 

And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies 
came flying in at the window and brought her such a 
pretty pair of wings that she could not help putting them 
on ; and she flew with them out of the window, and over 
the land, and over the sea, and up through the clouds, 
and nobody heard or saw anything, of her for a very long 
while. 

And this is why they say that no one has ever yet seen 
a water-baby. For my part, I believe that the naturalists 
get dozens of them when they are out dredging; but they 







146 


The Water-Babies. 


say nothing about them, and throw them overboard again, 
for fear of spoiling their theories. But, you see the pro¬ 
fessor was found out, as every one is in due time. A 
very terrible old fairy found the professor out, she felt 
his bumps, and cast his nativity, and took the lunars of 
him carefully inside and out; and so she knew what he 
would do as well as if she had seen it in a print book, as 
they say in the dear old west country ; and he did it; and 
so he was found out beforehand, as everybody always is; 
and the old fairy will find out the naturalists some day, 
and put them in the Times , and then on whose side will 
the laugh be ? 

So the old fairy took him in hand very severely there 
and then. But she says she is always most severe with 
the best people, because there is most chance of curing 
them, and therefore they are the patients who pay her 
best; for she has to work on the same salary as the 
Emperor of China’s physicians (it is a pity that all do not), 
no cure no pay. 

So she took the poor professor in hand: and because he 
was not content with things as they are, she filled his 
head with things as they are not, to try if he would like 
them better; and because he did not choose to believe in 
a water-baby when he saw it, she made him believe in 
worse things than water-babies—in unicorns , fire-drakes f 
manticoras , basilisks, amphisbcenas, griffins, phoenixes , rocs, 
ores, dog-headed men, three-headed dogs, three-bodied geryons, 
and other pleasant creatures, which folks think never 
existed yet, and which folks hope never will exist, though 
they know nothing about the matter, arid never will; and 
these creatures so upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


147 



confused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted 
the poor professor that the doctors said that he was out of 
his wits for three months; and perhaps they were right, 
as they are now and then. 

So all the doc¬ 
tors in the county 
were called in to make 
a report on his case; and of 
course every one of them 
flatly contradicted the other : 
else what use is there in 
being men of science ? But 
at last the majority agreed 
on a report in the true med¬ 
ical language, one half bad 
Latin, the other half worse 
Greek, and the rest what 
might have been English, if 
they had only learnt to write 
it. And this is the begin¬ 
ning thereof— 

“ The subanhypaposuper- 
nal anastomoses of peritomic 
diacellurite in the encephalo 
digital region of the distin¬ 
guished individual of whose symptomatic phenomena we had 
the melancholy honor (subsequently to a preliminary diagnos¬ 
tic inspectioii) of 7naking an inspectorial diagnosis, presenting 
the inter exclusively quadrilateral and anti?iomian diathesis' 
known as Bumpsterhausen'' s blue follicles, we proceeded ”— 
But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; 


‘Pleasant Creatures. 



4 8 


The Water Babies. 


for she was so frightened at the long words that she ran 
for her life, and locked herself into her bedroom, for fear 
of being squashed by the words and strangled by the 
sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company 
enough : but what was a boa constrictor made of paving 
stones ? 

It was quite shocking! What can they think is the 
matter with him ? ” said she to the old nurse. 

“ That his wit’s just addled ; may be wi’ unbelief and 
heathenry, ” quoth she. 

“ Then why can’t they say so ? ” 

And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the 
vales re-echoed—“ Why indeed ? ” But the doctors never 
heard them. 

So she made Sir John write to the Times to command 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being to 
put a tax on long words ;— 

A light tax on words over three syllables, which are 
necessary evils, like rats: but, like them, must be kept 
down judiciously. 

A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as heterodoxy , 
spontaneity , spiritualism , spuriosity , etc. 

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no 
one will wish to see any examples), a totally prohibitory 
tax. 

And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from 
three or more languages at once ; words derived from two 
languages having become so common that there was no 
more hope of rooting out them than of rooting out peth- 
winds. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


149 


a man of sense, jumped at the notion ; for he saw in it the 
one and only plan for abolishing Schedule D : but when 
he brought in his bill, most of the Irish members, and (I 
am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise, opposed it 
most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no 
man was bound either to understand himself or to let 
others understand him. So the bill fell through on the 
first reading; and the Chancellor, being a philosopher, 
comforted himself with the thought that it was not the first 
time that a woman had hit of! a grand idea and the men 
turned up their stupid noses thereat. 

Now the doctors had it all their own way ; and to work 
they went in earnest, and they gave the poor professor 
divers and sundry medicines, as prescribed by the an¬ 
cients and moderns, from Hippocrates to Feuchtersleben, 
as below, viz.— 

1. Hellebore , to wit — 

Hellebore of yEta. 

Hellebore of Galatia. 

Hellebore of Sicily. 

And all other Hellebores, after the method 
of the Helleborising Helleborists of the 
Helleboric era. But that would not do. 
Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles would not 
stir a?i inch out of his e 7 icephalo digital 
region. 

2. Trying to find out what was the matter with him 
afte? the method of 

Hippocrates, 

Aretceus , 



The Water-Babies. 


* 5 ° 

Ce/sus, 

Coe Hus Aurelianus, 

And Galen. 

But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as 
most people have since ; and so had recourse to— 

3. Borage. 

Cauteries. 

Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says 
Gordonius) “ will, without doubt, do much good.” But it 
didn’t. 


Bezoar stone. 

Diamargaritum. 

A ram's brain boiled in spice. 

Oil of wormwood. 

Water of Nile. 

Capers. 

Good wine (but there was none to be got). 
The water of a smith's forge. 

Hops. 

Ambergris. 

Mandrake pillows. 

Dormouse fat. 

Hares’’ ears. 

Starvation. 

Camphor. 

Salts and senna. 

Musk, 



A Fairy 1'ale for a Land Baby. 


J 5 


Opium. 

Strait-waistcoats. 

Bullyings. 

Bumpings. 

Blisterings. 

Bleedings. 

Bucketings with cold water. 

Knoekings down. . 

Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, etc. etc. ; 
after the mediceval or monkish method: but that 
would not do. Bumpsterhauseris blue follicles 
stuck there still. 

Then — 

4. Coaxing. 

Kissing. 

Champagne ana turtle. 

Red herrings and soda water. 

Good advice. 

Gardening. 

Croquet. 

Musical soirees. 

Aunt Sally. 

Mild tobacco. 

The Saturday Review. 

A carriage with outriders , etc. etc. 

After the modern method. But that would not do. 

And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had shot at 
the Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid paying them, or 
indulged in any other little amiable eccentricity of that 
kind, they would Jiave given him in addition-^- 



*5 2 


The Water-Babies. 


The healthiest situation in England, on Easthampstead 
plain. 

Free run of Windsor Forest. 

The Times every morning. 

A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to 
shoot three Wellington College boys a week (not more) 
in case black game was scarce. 

But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough to 
be allowed such luxuries, they grew desperate, and fell 
into bad ways, viz.— 

5. Suffumigations of sulphur . 

Herrwiggius his “ Incomparable drink for mad¬ 
men : ” 

Only they could not find out what it was. 

Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * # # 

Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could 
not well procure them a specimen. 

Metallic tractors. 

Holloway’s Ointment. 

Electro-biology. 

Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure . 

Spirit-rapping. 

Holloway's Pills. 

Table-turning. 

Moris oil's Pills. 

Homoeopathy. 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


*53 


Parr's Life Pills. 

Mesmerism. 

Pure Bosh. 

Exorcisms, for which they read Maleus Malefi- 
carum, Nideri Formicarium, Delrio, Wierus, 
etc. 

But could not get one that mentioned water-babies. 

Hydropathy. 

Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth. 

The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies. 

The distilled liquor of addle eggs. 

Pyropathy. 

As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to cure 
the malady of thought, and now by the Persian Mollahs to 
cure that of rheumatism. 

Geopathy, or burying him. 

Atmopathy, or steaming him. 

Sympathy, after the method of Basil Vale?itine 
his Triumph of Antimony, and Kenelm Digby 
his Weapon-salve, which some call a hair of 
the dog that bit him. 

Hermopathy, or pouring mercury down his 
throat to move the animal spirits. 

Meteoropathy, or going up to the moon to look 
for his lost wits, as Ruggiero did for Orlando 
Furioso's: only, having no hippogriff, they 
wereforced to use a balloon ; and, falling into 
the North Sea, were picked up by a Yarmouth 



154 


The Water-Babies. 


herring-boat, a?id came home much the wiser, 
and all over scales. 

Antipathy, or using him like “ a man and a 
brother .” 

Apathy, or doing nothing at all. 

With all other ipathies and opathies which 
Noodle has invented , and Foodie tried, since 
black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville — 
which is a considerable time ago, to judge by 
the Great Exhibition. 

But nothing would do ; for he screamed and cried all 
day for a water-baby, to come and drive away the mon¬ 
sters ; and of course they did not try to find one, because 
they did not believe in them, and were thinking of noth¬ 
ing but Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles ; having, as usual, 
set the cart before the horse, and taken the effect for the 
cause. 

So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease 
his mind by writing a great book, exactly contrary to all 
his old opinions ; in which he proved that the moon was 
made of green cheese, and that all the mites in it (which 
you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope, if 
you will only keep the lens dirty enough, as Mr. Weekes 
kept his voltaic battery) are nothing in the world but little 
babies, who are hatching and swarming up there in mil¬ 
lions, ready to come down into this world whenever chil¬ 
dren want a new little brother or sister. 

Which must be a mistake, for this one reason: that, 
there being no atmosphere round the moon (though some 
one or other says there is, at least on the other side, and 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


*55 


that he has been round at the back of it to see, and 
found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun, 
and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Mid¬ 
summer-day in Macintoshes and Cording’s boots, spearing 
eels and sneezing) ; that, therefore, I say, there being no 
atmosphere, there can be no evaporation; and therefore, 
the dew-point can never fall below 71*5° below zero of 
Fahrenheit: and, therefore, it cannot be cold enough there 
about four o’clock in the morning to condense the babies’ 
mesenteric apophthegms into their left ventricles ; and, 
therefore, they can never catch the hooping-cough ; and if 
they do not have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at 
all; and, therefore, there are no babies in the moon.— 
Q.E.D. 

Which may seem 
a roundabout rea¬ 
son and so, perhaps, 
it is: but you will 
have heard worse 
ones in your time, 
and from better men 
than you are. 

But one thing is 
certain ; that, when 
the good old doctor 
got his book written, 
he felt considerably 
relieved from Bump- 
sterhausen’s blue follicles, and a few things infinitely 
worse; to wit, from pride and vain-glory, and from blind¬ 
ness and hardness of heart; which are the true causes of 



“Writing a Great Book.” 





















'•Spearing Eels and Sneezing,’* 













A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


I 57 


Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles, and of a good many 
other ugly things besides. Whereon the foul flood-water 
in his brains ran down, and cleared to a fine coffee color, 
such as fish like to rise in, till very fine clean fresh-run 
fish did begin to rise in his brains; and he caught two or 
three of them (which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain 
rivers), and anatomized them carefully, and never men¬ 
tioned what he found out from them, except to little 
children ; and became ever after a sadder and a wiser 
man ; which is a very good thing to become, my dear 
little boy, even though one has to pay a heavy price for 
the blessing. 



“ Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead’s most benignant grace ; 

Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; 

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. 

Wordsworth, Ode to Duty. 


CHAPTER V. 


But what became of little Tom ? 

He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I 
said before. But he could not help thinking of little 
Elbe. He did not remember who she was; but he knew 
that she was a little girl, though she was a hundred times 
as big as he. That is not surprising: size has nothing to 
do with kindred. A tiny weed may be first cousin to a 
great tree; and a little dog like Vick knows that Lioness 
is a dog too, though she is twenty times larger than her¬ 
self. So Tom knew that Elbe was a little girl, and 
thought about her all that day, and longed to have had 
her to play with; but he had very soon to think of some¬ 
thing else. And here is the account of what happened to 
him, as it was published next morning in the Water¬ 
proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the use of 
the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the 
news very carefully every morning, and especially the 
police cases, as you will hear very soon. 

He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, 
watching the pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses nib¬ 
ble barnacles off the rocks, shells and all, when he saw a 


i6o 


The Water-Babies. 


round cage of green withes; and inside it, looking very 
much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the lobster twid¬ 
dling his horns, instead of thumbs. 

“What, have you been naughty, and have they put you 
in the lock-up ? ” asked Tom. 

The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, but 
he was too much depressed in spirits to argue; so he 
only said, “ I can’t get out.” 

“ Why did you get in ? ” 

“After that nasty piece of dead fish.” He had 
thought it looked and smelt very nice when he was out¬ 
side, and so it did, for a lobster: but now he turned 
round and abused it because he was angry with himself. 

“ Where did you get in ? ” 

“Through that round hole at the top.” 

“ Then why don’t you get out through it ? ” 

“Because I can’t:” and the lobster twiddled his horns 
more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to confess. 

“ I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, and 
sideways, at least four thousand times; and I can’t get 
out: I always get up underneath there, and can’t find the 
hole.” 

Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than the 
lobster, he saw plainly enough what was the matter; as 
you may if you will look at a lobster-pot. 

“Stop a bit,” said Tom. “Turn your tail up to me, 
and I’ll pull you through hindforemost, and then you 
won’t stick in the spikes.” 

But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he 
couldn’t hit the hole. Like a great many fox-hunters, he 
was very sharp as long as he was in his own country; 



I Han’t Get Out 




S 










162 


The Water-Babies. 


but as soon as they get out of it they lose their heads; 
and so the lobster, so to speak, lost his tail. 

Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, till 
he caught hold of him ; and then, as was to be expected, 
the clumsy lobster pulled him in head foremost. 

“Hullo! here is a pretty business, said Tom. “Now 
take your great claws, and break the points off those 
spikes, and then we shall both get out easily.” 

“Dear me, I never thought of that,” said the lobster; 
“ and after all the experience of life that I have had ! ” 

You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, 
or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it. For a 
good many people, like old Polonius, have seen all the 
world, and yet remain little better than children after all. 

But they had not got half the spikes away when they 
saw a great dark cloud over them : and lo, and behold, 
it was the otter. 

How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom, 



“Tom Reached and Clawed down the Hole after Him.’' 












A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


163 


“Yar!” said she, “you little meddlesome wretch, I have 
you now! I will serve you out for telling the salmon 
where I was ! ” And she crawled all over the pot, to get 
in. 

Tom was horribly frightened, and still more frightened 
. when she found the hole in the top, and squeezed herself 
right down through it, all eyes and teeth. But no 
sooner was her head inside, than valiant Mr. Lobster 
caught her by the nose and held on. 

And there they were all three in the pot, rolling over 
and over, and very tight packing it was. And the lobster 
tore at the otter, and the otter tore at the lobster, and 
both squeezed and thumped poor Tom till he had no 
breath left in his body; and I don’t know what would 
have happened to him, if he had not at last got on the 
otter’s back, and safe out of the hole. 

He was right glad when he got out: but he would not 
desert his friend who had saved him ; and the first time 
he savtf his tail uppermost he caught hold of it, and 
pulled with all his might. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“ Come along,” said Tom; “ don’t you see she is 
dead ?” And so she was, quite drowned and dead. 

And that was the end of the wicked otter. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“ Come along, you stupid- old stick-in-the-mud,” cried 
Tom, “or the fisherman will catch you!” And that was 
true, for Tom felt some one above beginning to haul up 
the pot. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to the boat-side, 



164 


The Water-Babies. 


and thought it was all up with him. But when Mr. 
Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and 
tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, and 
out of the pot, and safe into the sea. But he left his 
knobbed claw behind him ; for it never came into his 
stupid head to let go after all, so he just shook his claw 
off as the easier method. It was something of a bull, that; 
but you must know the lobster was an Irish lobster, and 
was hatched off Island Magee at the mouth of Belfast 
Lough. 

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of letting- 
go. He said very determinedly that it was a point of 
honor among lobsters. And so it is, as the Mayor of 
Plvmouth found out once to his cost—eight or nine 
hundred years ago, of course ; for if it had happened 
lately it would be personal to mention it. 

For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard 
chair, in a grand furred gown, with a gold chain round 
his neck, hearing one policeman after another come in and 
sing, “ What shall we do with the drunken sailor, so early 
in the morning? ” and answering them each exactly alike : 

“ Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so early 
in the morning ”— 

That, when it was over he jumped up, and played leap¬ 
frog with the town-clerk till he burst his buttons, and 
then had his luncheon, and burst some more buttons, and 
then said: “It is a low spring-tide; I shall go out this 
afternoon and cut my capers.” 

Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you eat 
with boiled mutton. It was the commandant of artillery 
at Valetta who used to amuse himself with cutting them. 




But he Left his Knobbed Claw behind him. 





t 










i66 


The Water-Babies. 


and who stuck upon one of the bastions a notice, “No 
one allowed to cut capers here but me,” which greatly 
edified the midshipmen in port, and the Maltese on the 
Nix Mangiare stairs. But all that the mayor meant was 
that he would go and have an afternoon’s fun, like any 
schoolboy, and catch lobsters with an iron hook. 

So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he 
looked. And when he came to a certain crack in the 
rocks he was so excited that, instead of putting in his 
hook, he put in his hand ; and Mr. Lobster was at home, 
and caught him by the finger, an cl held on. 

“ Yah ! ” said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he 
dared: but the more he pulled, the more the lobster 
pinched, till he was forced to be quiet. 

Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand ; 
but the hole was too narrow. 

Then he pulled again ; but he could not stand the pain. 

Then he shouted and bawled for help: but there was 
no one nearer him than the men-of-war inside the break¬ 
water. 

Then he began to turn a little pale ; for the tide flowed, 
and still the lobster held on. 

Then he turned quite white ; for the tide was up to his 
knees, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he thought of cutting off his finger ; but he 
wanted two things to do it with—courage and a knife, 
and he had got neither. 

Then he turned quite yellow ; for the tide was up to his 
waist, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever 
had done ; all the sand which he had put in the sugar, 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


167 


and the sloe-leaves in the tea, and the water in the treacle, 
and the salt in the tobacco (because his brother was 
a brewer, and a man must help his own kin). 

Then he turned quite blue ; for the tide was up to his 
breast, and still the lobster held on. 

Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the said 
naughty things which he had done, and promised to 
mend his life, as too many do when they think they have 



“The Tide was up to His Breast.” 


no life left to mend. Whereby, as they fancy, they make 
a very cheap bargain. But the old fairy with the birch 
rod soon undeceives them. 

And then he grew all colors at once, and turned up 
his eyes like a duck in thunder; for the water was up to 
his chin, and still the lobster held on. 

And then came a man-of-war’s boat round the Mewstone, 
and saw his head sticking up out of the water. One said 
it was a keg of brandy, and another that it was a cocoa- 
nut, and another that it was a buoy loose, and another 










The Water-Babies. 


168 


that it was a black diver, and wanted to fire at it, which 
would not have been pleasant for the mayor : but just then 
such a yell came out of a great hole in the middle of it 
that the midshipman in charge guessed what it was, and 
bade pull up to it as fast as they could. So somehow or 
other the Jacktars got the lobster out, and set the mayor 
free, and put him ashore at the Barbican. He never 
went lobster-catching again ; and we will hope he put no 
more salt in the tobacco, not even to sell his brother’s 
beer. 

And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, which 
has two advantages—first, that of being quite true ; and 
second, that of having (as folks say all good stories ought 
to have) no moral whatsoever : no more, indeed, has any 
part of this book, because it is a fairy tale, you know. 

And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing ; 
for he had not left the lobster five minutes before he came 
upon a water-baby. 

A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, very 
busy about a little point of rock. And when it saw Tom 
it looked up for a moment, and then cried, “ Why, you 
are not one of us. You are a new baby! Oh, how 
delightful! 

And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they 
hugged and kissed each other for ever so long, they did 
not know why. But they did not want any introductions 
there under the water. 

At last Tom said, “ Oh, where have you been all this 
while ? I have been looking for you so long, and I have 
been so lonely.” 

“We have been here for days and days. There are 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


69 


hundreds of us about the rocks. How was it you did not 
see us, or hear us when we sing and romp every evening 
before we go home ? ” 

Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said : 

“ Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things just like 
you again and again, but I thought you were shells, or sea- 
creatures. I never took you for water-babies like 
myself.” 

Now, was not that very odd ? So odd, indeed, that you 
will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, and why 
Tom could never find a water-baby till after he had got 
the lobster out of the pot. And, if you will read this 
story nine times over, and then think for yourself, you 
will find out why. It is not good for little boys to be told 
everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits. 
They would learn, then, no more than they do at Dr. 
Dulcimer’s famous suburban establishment for the idler 
members of the youthful aristocracy, where the mas¬ 
ters learn the lessons and the boys hear them—which 
saves a great deal of trouble—for the time being. 

“Now,” said the baby, “come and help me, or I shall 
not have finished before my brothers and sisters come, 
and it is time to go home.” 

“ What shall I help you at ? ” 

“ At this poor dear little rock ; a great clumsy boulder 
came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked all its head 
off, and rubbed off all its flowers. And now I must plant 
it again with seaweeds, and coralline, and anemones, and 
I will make it the prettiest little rock-garden on all the 
shore.” 

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and 



The Water-Babies. 


170 



smoothed the sand down around it and capital fun they had 
till the tide began to turn. And then Tom heard all the 
other babies coming, laughing and singing and shouting 
and romping; and the noise they made was just like the 
noise of the ripple. So he knew that he had been hear¬ 
ing and seeing the water-babies all along ; only he did not 
know them, because his eyes and ears were not opened. 

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some 
bigger than Tom and some smaller, all in the neatest little 
white bathing dresses ; and when they found that he was 

a new baby, they hugged him and 
kissed him, and then put him in the 
\ middle and danced round him on 
the sand, and there was no one 
ever so happy as poor little 
Tom. 

“ Now then,” they cried all at 
once, “ we must come away 
home, we must come away home, 
or the tide will leave us dry. 
We have mended all the 
broken seaweed, and put all 
the rock-pools in or¬ 
der, and planted 
all the shells 
again in the 
sand, and no¬ 
body will see 
where the ugly 
storm swept in 

They Worked Away at the Rock,” last week.” 




A Fairy J'ale for a Land-Baby. 171 

And this is the reason why the rock-pools are always so 
neat and clean ; because the water-babies come inshore 
after every storm to sweep them out, and comb them down, 
and put them all to rights again. 

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let sewers 
run into the sea instead of putting the stuff upon the fields 
like thrifty reasonable souls ; or throw herrings’ heads 
and dead dog fish, or any other refuse, into the water; or 
in any way make a mess upon the clean shore—there the 
water-babies will not come, sometimes not for hundreds 
of years (for they cannot abide anything smelly or foul), 
but leave the sea-anemones and the crabs to clear away 
everything, till the good tidy sea has covered up all the 
dirt in soft mud and clean sand, where the water-babies 
can plant live cockles and whelks and razor-shells and 
sea-cucumbers and golden-combs, and make a pretty 
live garden again, after man’s dirt is cleared away. 
And that, I suppose, is the reason why there are no 
water-babies at any watering-place which I have ever 
seen. 

And where is the home of the water-babies ? In St. 
Bran dan’s fairy isle. 

Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how he 
preached to the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry coast, 
he and five other hermits, till they were weary and longed 
to rest ? For the wild Irish would not listen to them, or 
come to confession and to mass, but liked better to brew 
potheen, and dance the pater o’pee, and knock each other 
over the head with shillelaghs, and shoot each other from 
behind turf-dykes, and steal each other’s cattle, and burn 
each other’s homes; till St. Brandan and his friends 



172 


The Water-Babies. 



sighed—“ Ah 


were weary of them, for they 
would not learn to be peace¬ 
able Christians at all. 

So St. Brandan went 
out to the point of old 
Dunmore, and looked 
over the tide-way 
roaring round the 
Blasquets, at the 
end of all the 
world, and away 
into the ocean, and 

that 

I had wings 
as a dove ! ” 
And far away, 
before the set¬ 
ting sun, he 
saw a blue 
fairy sea, and 

golden fairy islands, and he said, “Those are the islands 
of the blest.” Then he and his friends got into a hooker, 
and sailed away and away to the westward, and were 
never heard of more. But the people who would not 
hear him were changed into gorillas, and gorillas they are 
until this day. 

And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to that 
fairy isle thev found it overgrown with cedars and full of 
beautiful birds ; and he sat down under the cedars and 
preached to all the birds in the air. And they liked his 
sermons so well that they told the fishes in the sea ; and 


“Sailed Away and Away to the Westward.’ 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


x 7 3 



they came, and St. Brandan preached to them ; and the 
fishes told the water-babies, who live in the caves under 
the isle ; and they came up by hundreds every Sunday, and 
St. Brandan got quite a neat little Sunday-school. And 
there he taught the water-babies for a great many hun¬ 
dred years, till his eyes grew too dim to see, and his beard 
grew so long that he dared not walk for fear of treading 
on it, and then he might have tumbled down. And at 
last he and the five hermits fell fast asleep under the cedar- 
shades, and there they sleep unto this day. But the fair¬ 
ies took to the water-babies, and taught them their 
lessons themselves. 

And some say that St. Brandan will awake and begin to 
teach the babies once more: but some think that he will 
sleep on, for better for worse, till the coming of the 
Cocqcigrues. But, on still clear summer evenings, when 
the sun sinks down into the sea, among golden cloud-capes 
and cloud-islands, and 
locks and friths of azure 
sky, the sailors fancy 
that they see, away 
to westward, St. 

Brandan’s fairy 
isle. 

But whether men 
can see it or not, 

St. Brandan’s Isle 
once actually stood 
there; a great land out 
in the ocean, which has 
sunk and sunk beneath “The Crabs Picked UP ALL the Scraps.” 



i 74 


The Water-Babies. 


the waves. Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange 
tales of the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars 
they fought in the old times. And from off that island 
came strange flowers, which linger still about this land : 
—the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort, and the 
delicate Venus’s hair, and the London-pride which covers 
the Kerry mountains, and the little pink butterwort of 
Devon, and the great blue butterwort of Ireland, and the 
Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern of the Turk water¬ 
fall, and many a strange plant more; all fairy tokens left 
for wise men and good children from off St. Brandan’s 
Isle. 

Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle stood 
all on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. 
There were pillars of black basalt, like Staffa; and pillars 
of green and crimson serpentine, like Kynance; and 
pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone, 
like Livermead; and there were blue grottoes like Capri, 
and white grottoes like Adelsberg; all curtained and 
draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and 
brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the 
water-babies sleep every night. But, to keep the place 
clean and sweet, the crabs picked up all the scraps off the 
floor and ate them like so many monkeys ; while the rocks 
were covered with ten thousand sea-anemones, and corals 
and madrepores, who scavenged the water all day long, 
and kept it nice and pure. But, to make up to them for 
having to do such nasty work, they were not left black 
and dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. 
No; the fairies are more considerate and just than that, 
and have dressed them all in the most beautiful colors 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


175 


and patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay 
blossoms. If you think I am talking nonsense, I can only 
say that it is true; and that an old gentlemen named 
Fourier used to say that we ought to do the same by 
chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honor them instead of 
despising them ; and he was a very clever old gentleman : 
but, unfortunately for him and the world, as mad as a 
March hare. 

And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out 
nasty things at night, there were thousands and thousands 
of water-snakes, and most wonderful creatures they were. 
They were all named after the Nereids, the sea-fairies 
who took care of them, Eunice and Polynoe, Phyllodoce 
and Psamathe, and all the rest of the pretty darlings who 
swim round their Queen Amphitrite, and her car of cameo 
shell. They were dressed in green velvet, and black 
velvet, and purple velvet; and were all jointed in rings; 
and some of them had three hundred brains apiece, so 
that they must have been uncommonly shrewd detectives; 
and some had eyes in their tails ; and some had eyes in 
every joint, so that they kept a very sharp look-out; and 
when they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew one at 
the end of their own tails, and when it was able to take 
care of itself it dropped off; so that they brought up their 
families very cheaply. But if any nasty thing came by, 
out they rushed upon it; and then out of each of their 
hundreds of feet there sprang a whole cutler’s shop of 


Scythes , 
Billhooks, 
Pickaxes , 


Javelins , 
Lances , 
Halberts , 



176 


The Water-Babies . 


Penknives, 


Rapiers , 
Sabres, 


Yataghans, 
Creeses, 

Ghoorka swords , 
Tucks, 


Forks, 


Gisarines , 
Poleaxes, 
Fishhooks , 
Bradawls , 
Gimblets, 
Corkscrews\ 


Pins, 
Needles , 


jy? forth 


which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, 
pinked, and crimped those naughty beasts so terribly that 
they had to run for their lives, or else be chopped into 
small pieces and be eaten afterwards. And, if that is not 
all, every word, true, then there is no faith in microscopeSj 
and all is over with the Linnaean Society. 

And there were the water-babies in thousands, more 
than Tom, or you either, could count.—All the little chil¬ 
dren whom the good fairies take to, because their cruel 
mothers and fathers will not; all who are untaught and 
brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by ill-usage 
or ignorance or neglect; all the little children who are 
overlaid, or given gin when they are young, or are let to 
drink out of hot kettles, or to fall into the fire; all the 
little children in alleys and courts, and tumble-down 
cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles, and 
scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any 
business to have, and which no one will have some day, 
when folks have common sense ; and all the little chil¬ 
dren who have been killed by cruel masters and wicked 
soldiers; they were all there, except, of course, the babes 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


r 77 


of Bethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod; for 
they were taken straight to heaven long ago, as everybody 
knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents. 

But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, 
and left off tormenting dumb animals now that he had 
plenty of playfellows to amuse him. Instead of that, I am 
sorry to say, he would meddle with the creatures, all but 
the water-snakes, for they would stand no nonsense. So 
he tickled the madrepores, to make them shut up; and 
frightened the crabs, to make them hide in the sand and 
peep out at him with the tips of their eyes ; and put stones 
into the anemones’ mouths, to make them fancy that their 
dinner was coming. 

The other children warned him, and said, “ Take care 
what you are at. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming.” 
But Tom never heeded them, being quite riotous with 
high spirits and good luck, till, one Friday morning early, 
Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed. 

A very tremendous lady she was; and when the chil¬ 
dren saw her they all stood in a row, very upright indeed, 
and smoothed down their bathing dresses, and put their 
hands behind them, just as if they were going to be ex¬ 
amined by the inspector. 

And she had on’a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and 
no crinoline at all ; and a pair of large green spectacles, 
and a great hooked nose, hooked so much that the bridge 
of it stood quite up above her eyebrows; and under her 
arm she carried a great birch-rod. Indeed, she was so 
ugly that Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but did 
not; for he did not admire the look of the birch-rod under 
her arm. 












A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


i 79 


And she looked at the children one by one, and seemed 
very much pleased with them, though she never asked 
them one question about how they were behaving; and 
then began giving them all sorts of nice sea-things—sea- 
cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bullseyes, sea-toffee ; 
and to the very best of all she gave sea-ices, made out of 
sea-cows’ cream, which never melt under water. 

And, if you don’t quite believe me, then just think 
—What is more cheap and plentiful than sea-rock ? 
Then why should there not be sea-toffee as well ? And 
everyone can find sea-lemons (ready quartered too) if they 
will look for them at low tide; and sea-grapes too some¬ 
times, hanging in bunches; and if you will go to Nice, 
you will find the fish-market full of sea-fruit, which they 
call “ frutta di mare though I suppose they call them 
“ fruits de mer ” now, out of compliment to that most 
successsful, and therefore most immaculate, potentate 
who is seemingly desirous of inheriting the blessing pro¬ 
nounced on those who remove their neighbors’ land-mark. 
And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place is 
called Nice, because there are so many nice things in 
the sea there : at least, if it is not, it ought to be. 

Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given 
away, till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew as round 
as an owl’s. For he hoped that his turn would come at 
last; and so it did. For the lady called him up, and 
held out her fingers with something in them, and popped 
it into his mouth ; and, lo and behold, it was a nasty 
cold hard pebble. 

“ You are a very crtiel woman, ” said he and began to 
whimper. 



i8o 


The Water-Babies. 


“And you are a very cruel boy; who puts pebbles into 
the sea-anemones’ mouths, to take them in, and make 
them fancy that they had caught a good dinner! As you 
did to them, so I must do to you.” 

“ Who told you that ? ” said Tom. 

“ You did yourself, this very minute.” 

Tom had never opened his lips; so he was very.much 
taken aback indeed. 

“Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have done 
wrong ; and that without knowing it themselves. So there 
is no use trying to hide anything.from me. Now go, and 
be a good boy, and I will put no more pebbles in your 
mouth, if you put none in other creatures’.” 

“ I did not know there was any harm in it, ” said Tom. 

“ Then you know now. People continually say that to 
me : but I tell them, if you don’t know that fire burns, 
that is no reason that it should not burn you ; and if you 
don’t know that dirt breeds fever, that is no reason why 
the fevers should not kill you. The lobster did not know 
that there was any harm in getting into the lobster-pot; 
but it caught him all the same.” 

“ Dear me, ” thought Tom, “ she knows everything ! ” 
And so she did, indeed. 

“ And so, if you do not know that things are wrong, 
that is no reason why you should not be punished for 
them ; though not as much, not as much, my little man ” 
(and the lady looked very kindly, after all), “as. if you 
did know.” 

“Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad, ” said Tom. 

“ Not at all ; I am the best friend you ever had in all 
your life. But I will tell you ; I cannot help punishing 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


181 


people when they do wrong. I like it no more than they 
do ; I am often very, very sorry for them, poor things : 
but I cannot help it. If I tried not to do it, I should 
do it all the same. For I work by machinery, just like an 
engine; and am full of wheels and springs inside; and 
am wound up very carefully, so that I cannot help 
going.” 

“Was it long ago since they wound you up?” asked 
Tom. For he thought, the cunning little fellow, “She 
will run down some day : or they may forget to wind her 
up, as old Grimes used to forget to wind up his watch 
when he came in from the public-house ; and then I shall 
be safe.” 

“ I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that I 
foro;et all about it.” 

“Dear me,” said Tom, “you must have been made a 
long time ! ” 

“I never was made, my child ; and I shall go for ever 
and ever ; for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as young 
as Time.” 

And there came over the lady’s face a very curious ex¬ 
pression—very solemn, and very sad ; and yet very, very 
sweet. And she looked up and away, as if she were 
gazing through the sea, and through the sky, at something 
far, far off; and as she did so, there came such a quiet, 
tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face that Tom 
thought for the moment that she did not look ugly at all. 
And no more she did ; for she was like a great many peo¬ 
ple who have not a pretty feature in their faces, and yet 
are lovely to behold, and draw little children’s hearts to 
them at once ; because though the house is plain enough, 



182 


The Water-Babies . 


yet from the windows a beautiful and good spirit is look¬ 
ing forth. 

And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for 
the moment. And the strange fairy smiled too, and said : 

“ Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did you 
not ? ” 

Tom hung down his head, and got very red about the 
ears. 

“ And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the 
world; and I shall be, till people behave themselves as 
they ought to do. And then I shall grow as handsome as 
my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world; and her 
name is Mrs. Doasvouwouldbedoneby. So she begins 
where I end, and I begin where she ends; and those who 
will not listen to her must listen to me, as you will see. 
Now, all of you run away, except Tom ; and he may stay 
and see what I am going to do. It will be a very good 
warning for him to begin with, before he goes to 
school.” 

“Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and call 
up all who have ill-used little children and serve them 
as they served the children.” 

And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a 
stone ; which made the two crabs who lived there very 
angry, and frightened their friend the butter-fish into 
flapping hysterics : but he would not move for them. 

And first she called up all the doctors who give little 
children so much physic (they were most of them old 
ones ; for the young ones have learnt better, all but a few 
army surgeons, who still fancy that a baby’s inside is 
much like a Scotch grenadier’s), and she set them all in a 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


183 

row; and very rueful they looked ; for they knew what 
was coming. 

And first she pulled all their teeth out; and then she 
bled them all round: and then she dosed them with calo¬ 
mel, and jalap, and salts and senna, and brimstone and 
treacle ; and horrible faces they made; and then she 



"She Laced Them all up in Tight Stays, so that They were Choked.” 


save them a great emetic of mustard and water, and no 
basons ; and began all over again ; and that was the way 
she spent the morning. 

And then she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, 
who pinch up their children’s waists and toes; and 
she laced them all up in tight stays, so that they were 
choked and sick, and their noses grew red, and their 





184 


The Water-Babies. 


hands and feet swelled; and then she crammed their 
poor feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and 
made them all dance, which they did most clumsily 
indeed ; and then she asked them how they liked it; 
and when they said not at all, she let them go : because 
they had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying 
it was for their children’s good, as if wasps’ waists and 
pigs’ toes could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use 
to anybody. 

Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, and 
stuck pins into them all over, and wheeled them about in 
perambulators with tight straps across their stomachs and 
their heads and arms hanging over the side, till they 
were quite sick and stupid, and would have had sun¬ 
strokes : but, being under the water, they could only have 
water-strokes; which, I assure you, are nearly as bad, as 
you will find if you try to sit under a mill-wheel. And 
mind—when you hear a rumbling at the bottom of the 
sea, sailors will tell you that it is a ground-swell: but now 
you know better. It is the old lady wheeling the maids 
about in perambulators. 

And by that time she was so tired, she had to go to 
luncheon. 

And after luncheon she set to work again, and called 
up all the cruel schoolmasters—whole regiments and bri¬ 
gades of them ; and when she saw them, she frowned 
most terribly, and set to work in earnest, as if the 
best part of the day’s work was to come. More than 
half of them were nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, smelly old 
monks, who, because they dare not hit a man of their own 
size, amused themselves with beating little children in- 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


185 


stead; as you may see in the picture of old Pope Gregory 
(good man and true though he was, when he meddled 
with things which he did understand), teaching children 
to sing their fa-fa-mi-fa with a cat-o’-nine tails under his 
chair : but, because they never had any children of their 
own, they took into their heads (as some folks do still) 
that they were the only people in the world who knew 
how to manage children : and they first brought into Eng¬ 
land, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the fashion of treat¬ 
ing free boys, and girls too, worse than you would treat 
a dog or a horse : but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has caught 
them all long ago; and given them many a taste of their 
own rods; and much good may it do them. 

And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the 
head with rulers, and pandied their hands with canes, 
and told them that they told stories, and were this and 
that bad sort of people; and the more they were very 
indignant, and stood upon their honor, and declared 
they told the truth, the more she declared they were 
not, and that they were only telling lies; and at last 
she birched them all round soundly with her great birch- 
rod and set them each an imposition of three hundred 
thousand lines of Hebrew to learn by heart before she 
came back next Friday. And at that they all cried and 
howled so, that their breaths came all up through the sea 
like bubbles out of soda-water; and that is one reason of 
the bubbles in the sea. There are others : but that is the 
one which principally concerns little boys. And by that 
time she was so tired that she was glad to stop ; and 
indeed, she had done a very good day’s work. 

Tom did not quite dislike the old lady : but he could 



i86 


The Water-Babies. 


not help thinking her a little spiteful—and no wonder if 
she was, poor old soul; for if she has to wait to grow 
handsome till people do as they would be done by, she 
will have to wait a very long time. 

Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! she has a great deal 
of hard work before her, and had better have been born 
a washerwoman, and stood over a tub all day: but, you 
see, people cannot always choose their own profession. 

But Tom longed to ask her one question ; and after all, 
whenever she looked at him, she did not look cross at all; 
and now and then there was a funny smile in her face, 
and she chuckled to herself in a way which gave Tom 
courage, and at last he said : 

“ Pray, ma’am, may I ask you a question ? ” 

“Certainly, my little dear.” 

“ Why don’t you bring all the bad masters here and 
serve them out too? The butties that knock about the 
poor collier-boys ; and the nailers that file off their lads’ 
noses and hammer their fingers; and all the master 
sweeps, like my master Grimes? I saw him fall into the 
water long ago ; so I surely expected he would have been 
here. I’m sure he was bad enough to me.” 

Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom was 
quite frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold. 
But she was not angry with him. She only answered, “ I 
look after them all the week round ; and they are in a 
very different place from this, because they knew that 
they were doing wrong.” 

She spoke very quietly; but there was something in her 
voice which made Tom tingle from head to foot, as if fie 
had got into a shoal of sea-nettles, 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


187 


“But these people,” she went on, “ did not know that 
they were doing wrong : they were only stupid and impa¬ 
tient ; and therefore I only punish them till they become 
patient, and learn to use their common sense like reason¬ 
able beings. But as for chimney-sweeps, and collier- 
boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set good people to 
stop all that sort of thing; and very much obliged to her 
I am; for if she could only stop the cruel masters from 
ill-using poor children, I should grow handsome at least a 
thousand years sooner. And now do you be a good boy, 
and do as you would be done by, which they did not; 
and then, when my sister, Madame Doasyouwouldbe- 
doneby, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take notice 
of you, and teach you how to behave. She understands 
that better than I do.” And so she went. 

Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance of 
meeting Grimes again, though he was a little sorry for 
him, considering that he used sometimes to give him the 
leavings of the beer: but he determined to be a very 
good boy all Saturday ; and he was; for he never fright¬ 
ened one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor put stones 
into the sea-anemones’ mouths to make them fancy they 
had got a dinner; and when Sunday morning came, sure 
enough, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came too. 
Whereat all the little children began dancing and clap¬ 
ping their hands, and Tom danced too with all his might. 

And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the 
color of her hair was, or of her eyes : no more could 
Tom ; for, when any one looks at her, all they can think 
of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest, tenderest, fun¬ 
niest, merriest face they ever saw, or want tq see. But 




The Water-Babies. 


188 



Tom saw that she was a very 
tall woman, as tall as her 
sister: but instead of being 
gnarly and horny, and scaly, 
and prickly, like her, she was 
the most nice, soft, fat, 
smooth, pussy, cuddly, deli¬ 
cious creature who ever 
nursed a baby; and she un¬ 
derstood babies thoroughly, 
for she had plenty of her 
own, whole 
rows and 
regiments 
of them, 
and has to 
this day. 
And all 
her delight 
was, when¬ 
ever she 
hada spare 
moment,to 
play with 
babies, in 
which she 

“Tom Danced too with all His Might.” S ll O W e d 

herself a 

woman of sense; for babies are the best company, and 
the pleasantest playfellows, in the world ; at least, so all 
the wise people in the world think, And therefore when 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


189 


the children saw her, they naturally all caught hold of 
her, and pulled her till she sat down on a stone, and 
climbed into her lap, and clung round her neck, and 
caught hold of her hands ; and then they all put their 
thumbs into their mouths, and began cuddling and pur¬ 
ring like so many kittens, as they ought to have done. 
While those who could get nowhere else sat down on the 
sand, and cuddled her feet—for no one, you know, wears 
shoes in the water, except horrid old bathing women, who 
are afraid of the water-babies pinching their horny toes. 
And Tom stood staring at them; for he could not under¬ 
stand what it was all about. 

“And who are you, you little darling?” she said. 

“ Oh, that is the new baby! ” they all cried, pulling 
their thumbs out of their mouths ; “and he never had any 
mother,” and they all put their thumbs back again, fot* 
they did not wish to lose any time. 

“ Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the very 
best place ; so get out, all of you, this moment,” 

And she took up two great armfuls of babies—nine 
hundred under one arm, and thirteen hundred under the 
other—and threw them away, right and left, into the 
water. But they minded it no more than the naughty 
boys in Struwelpeter minded when St. Nicholas dipped 
them in his inkstand ; and did not even take their thumbs 
out of their mouths, but came paddling and wriggling 
back to her like so many tadpoles, till you could see 
nothing of her from head to foot for the swarm of little 
babies. 

But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the 
softest place of all, and kissed him, and patted him, 



190 


The Water-Babies. 


and talked to him tenderly and low, such things as he 
had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked up 
into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell fast 
asleep from pure love. 

And when he woke she was telling the children a story. 
And what story did she tell them ? One story she told 
them, which begins every Christmas Eve, and yet never 
ends at all for ever and ever; and as she went on, the 
children took their thumbs out of their mouths and 
listened quite seriously; but not sadly at all; for she 
never told them anything sad; and Tom listened too, 
and never grew tired of listening. And he listened so 
long that he fell fast asleep again, and, when he woke, 
the lady was nursing him still. 

“ Don’t go away,” said little Tom. “This is so nice. 
I never had any one to cuddle me before.” 

“Don’t go away,” said all the children; “you have not 
sung us one song.” 

“ Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be ?” 

“ The doll you lost! The doll you lost! ” cried all the 
babies at once. 

So the strange fairy sang:— 



A Fairy 'Tale for a Land-Baby. 


i 9 t 



I once had a sweet little doll, dears, 

The prettiest doll in the world ; 

Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears i 
And her hair was so charmingly curled. 
But I lost my poor little doll, dears, 

As I played in the heath one day ; 

And I cried for her more than a week, dears, 
But I never could find where she lay. 


/ found my poor little doll, dears. 

As I played in the heath one day: 

Folks say she is terribly changed, dears, 
For her paint is all washed away, 

And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears, 
And her hair not the least bit curled: 
Yet, for old sakes ’ sake she is still, dears, 
The prettiest doll in the world. 






192 


The Water-Babies. 


What a silly song for a fairy to sing! 

And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted at it! 

Well, but you see they have not the advantage of 
Aunt Agitate’s Arguments in the sea-land down below. 

“ Now,” said the fairy to Tom, “ will you be a good boy 
for my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I come 
back ? ” 

“ And you will cuddle me again ? ” said poor little Tom. 

“ Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to 
take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I must 
not; ” and away she went. 

So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented 
no sea-beasts after that as long as he lived; and he is 
quite alive, I assure you, still. 

Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind 
pussy mammas to cuddle them and tell them stones; and 
how afraid they ought to be of growing naughty, and 
bringing tears into their mammas’ pretty eyes ! 



“Thou little child, yet glorious in the night 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being’s height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The Years to bring the inevitable yoke— 

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.” 


Wordsworth. 



CHAPTER VI. 


Here I come to the very saddest part of all my story. 
I know some people will only laugh at it, and call it 
much ado about nothing. But I know one man who 
would not; and he was an officer with a pair of gray 
moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in com¬ 
pany that two of the most heart-rending sights in the 
world, which moved him most to tears, which he would 
do anything to prevent or remedy, were a child over a 
broken toy and a child stealing sweets. 

The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches 
were too long and too gray for that: but, after he was 
gone, they called him sentimental and so forth, all but 
one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white as 
her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to sol¬ 
diers ; and she said very quietly, like a Quaker: 

“Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly 
brave man.” 

Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he 
had everything that he could want or wish: but you 
would be very much mistaken. Being quite comfortable 
is a very good thing; but it does not make people good. 


196 


The Water-Babies. 


Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made 
the people in America; and as it made the people in the 
Bible, who waxed fat and kicked, like horses overfed and 
underworked. And I am very sorry to say that this hap¬ 
pened to little Tom. For he grew so fond of the sea- 
bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little head 
could think of nothing else : and he was always longing 
for more, and wondering when the strange lady would 
come again and give him some, and what she would give 
him, and how much, and whether she would give him 
more than the others. And he thought of nothing but 
lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing else by night— 
and what happened then? 

That he began to watch the lady to see where she kept 
the sweet things : and began hiding, and sneaking, and 
following her about, and pretending to be looking the 
other way, or going after something else, till he found 
out that she kept them in a beautiful mother-of-pearl cab¬ 
inet away in a deep crack of the rocks. 

And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was 
afraid ; and then he longed again, and was less afraid ; 
and at last, by continual thinking about it, he longed so 
violently that he was not afraid at all. Arid one night, 
when all the other children were asleep, and he could not 
sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept away among the 
rocks, and got to the cabinet, and behold ! it was open. 

But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead of 
being delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished he 
had never come there. And then he would only touch 
them, and he ‘did ; and then he would only taste one, and 
he did ; and then he would only eat one, and he did; and 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


197 


then he would only eat two, and then three, and so on ; 
and then he was terrified lest she should come and catch 
him, and began gobbling them down so fast that he did 
not taste them, or have any pleasure in them ; and then he 
felt sick, and would have only one more ; and then only 
one more again ; and so on till he had eaten them all up. 

And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Be- 
donebyasyoudid. 

Some people may say, But why did she not keep her 
cupboard locked ? Well, I know.—It may seem a very 
strange thing, but she never does keep her cupboard 
locked ; every one may go and taste for themselves, and 
fare accordingly. It is very odd, but so it is; and I am 
quite sure that she knows best. Perhaps she wishes peo¬ 
ple to keep their fingers out of the fire, by having them 
burned. 

She took off her spectacles, because she did not like to 
see too much ; and in her pity she arched up her eye¬ 
brows into her very hair, and her eyes grew so wide that 
they would have taken in all the sorrows of the world, 
and filled with great big tears, as they too often do. 

But all she said was : 



“And then He would only Touch Them,” 






198 


The Water-Babies. 


“Ah, you poor little dear! you are just like all the 
rest.” 

But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard nor 
saw her. Now, you must not fancy that she was senti¬ 
mental at all. If you do, and think that she is going to 
let off you, or me, or any human being when we do 
wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to punish us, 
then you will find yourself very much mistaken, as many 
a man does every year and every day. 

But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all her 
lollipops eaten ? 

Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, 
hold him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke 
him, pull him, pinch him, pound him, put him in a corner, 
shake him, slap him, set him on a cold stone to reconsider 
himself, and so forth ? 

Not a bit. You may watch her at work if you know 
where to find her. But you will never see her do that. 
For, if she had, she knew quite well Tom would have 
fought, and kicked, and bit, and said bad words, and 
turned again that moment into a naughty little heathen 
chimney-sweep, with his hands, like IshmaePs of old, 
against every man, and every man’s hand against him. 

Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, threaten 
him, to make him confess? Not a bit. You may see 
her, as I said, at her work often enough if you know 
where to look for her: but you will never see her do 
that. For, if she had, she would have tempted him to 
tell lies in his fright; and that would have been worse 
for him, if possible, than even becoming a heathen 
ehimney-sweep again. 






2 00 


The Water-Babies. 


No. She leaves that for anxious parents and teachers 
(lazy ones, some call them), who, instead of giving chil¬ 
dren a fair trial, such as they would expect and demand 
for themselves, force them by fright to confess their own 
faults—which is so cruel and unfair that no judge on the 
bench dare do it to the wickedest thief or murderer, for 
the good British law forbids it—av, and even punish 
them to make them confess, which is so detestable a 
crime that it is never committed now, save by Inquisitors, 
and Kings of Naples, and a few other wretched people of 
whom the world is weary. And then they say, “We have 
trained up the child in the way he should go, and when 
he grew up he has departed from it. Why then did 
Solomon say that he would not depart from it ? ” But 
perhaps the way of beating, and hurrying, and frightening, 
and questioning, was not the way that* the child should 
go; for it is not even the way in which a colt should go if 
you want to break it in and make a quiet serviceable 
horse. 

Some folks may say, “ Ah ! but the Fairy does not 
need to do that if she knows everything already.” True. 
But, if she did not know, she would not surely behave 
worse than a British judge and jury; and no more should 
parents and teachers either. 

So she just said nothing at all about the matter, not 
even when Tom came next day with the rest for sweet 
things. He was horribly afraid of coming: but he was 
still more afraid of staying away, lest any one should sus¬ 
pect him. He was dreadfully afraid, too, lest there should 
be no sweets—as was to be expected, he having eaten 
them all—and lest then the fairy should inquire who had 




A Fairy dale for a Land-Baby. 


201 


taken them. But, behold ! she pulled out just as many as 
ever, which astonished Tom, and frightened him still more. 

And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he 
shook from head to foot: however she gave him his share 
like the rest, and he thought within himself that she could 
not have found him out. 

But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated 
the taste of them; and they made him so sick that he had 
to get away as fast as he could; and terribly sick he was, 
and very cross and unhappy, all the week after. 

Then, when next week came, he had his share again ; 
and again the fairy looked him full in the face ; but more 
sadly than she had ever looked. And he could not bear 
the sweets : but took them again in spite of himself. 

And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedonebv came, he 
wanted to be cuddled like the rest; but she said very 
seriously : 

“ I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are so 
horny and prickly.” 

And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over 
prickles, just like a sea-egg. 

Which was quite natural; for you must know and be¬ 
lieve that people’s souls make their bodies just as a snail 
makes its shell (I am not joking, my little man ; I am in 
serious, solemn earnest). And therefore, when Tom’s 
soul grew all prickly with naughty tempers, his body 
could not help growing prickly too, so that nobody would 
cuddle him, or play with him, or even like to look at him. 

What could Tom do now but go away and hide in a 
corner and cry? For nobody would play with him, and 
he knew full well why. 



202 


The Water-Babies. 



“Then You will Take Away all these Nasty Prickles.” 


He was horribly frightened when lie had done so; for 
he expected her to punish him very severely. But, instead, 
she only took him up and kissed him, which was not 
quite pleasant, for her chin was very bristly indeed; but 
he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough kissing 
was better than none. 


And he was so miserable all that week that when the 
uglv fairv came and looked at him once more full in the 
face, more seriously and sadly than ever, he could stand 
it no longer, and thrust the sweetmeats away, saying, 
“No, I don’t want any: I can’t bear them now,” and 
then burst out crying, poor little man, and told Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid every word as it happened. 







A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


203 


“I will forgive you, little man,” she said. “I always 
forgive every one the moment they tell me the truth of 
their own accord.” 

“Then you will take away all these nasty prickles ? ” 

“ That is a very different matter. You put them there 
yourself, and only you can take them away.” 

“ But how can I do that ? ” asked Tom, crying 
afresh. 

“ Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so I 
shall fetch you a schoolmistress, who will teach you how 
to get rid of your prickles.” And so she went away. 

Tom was frightened at the notion of a schoolmistress; 
for he thought she would certainly come with a birch-rod 
or a cane ; but he comforted himself, at last, that she 
might be something like the old woman in Vendale— 
which she was not in the least; for, when the fairy 
brought her, she was the most beautiful little girl that 
ever was seen, with long curls floating behind her like a 
golden cloud, and long robes floating all round her like 
a silver one. 

“ There he is,” said the fairy; “ and you must teach 
him to be good, whether vou like or not.” 

“ I know,” said the little girl; but she did not seem 
quite to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and 
looked at Tom under her brows; and Tom put his finger 
in his mouth, and looked at her under his brows, for he 
was horribly ashamed of himself. 

The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin ; 
and perhaps she would never have begun at all if poor 
Tom had not burst out crying, and begged her to teach 
him to be good and help him to cure his prickles; and at 



204 


The IVater-Bahies. 


that she grew so tender-hearted that She began teaching 
him as prettily as ever child was taught in the world. 

And what did the little girl teach Tom ? She taught 
him, first, what you have been taught ever since you said 
your first prayers at your mother’s knees; but she taught 
him much more simply. For the lessons in that world, 
my child, have no such hard words in them as the lessons 
in this, and therefore the water-babies like them better 
than you like your lessons, and long to learn them more 
and more; and grown men cannot puzzle nor quarrel over 
their meaning, as they do here on land; for those lessons 
all rise clear and pure, like the Test out of Overton Pool, 
out of the everlasting ground of all life and truth. 

So she taught Tom every day in the week ; only on 
Sundays she always went away home, and the kind fairy 
took her place. And before she had taught Tom many 
Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, and his 
skin was smooth and clean again. 

“Dear me!” said the little girl ;“ why, T know you 
now. You are the very same little chimney-sweep who 
came into my bedroom.” 

“ Dear me ! ” cried Tom. “ And I know you, too, now. 
You are the very little white lady whom I saw in bed.” 
And he jumped at her, and longed to hug and kiss her ; 
but did not, remembering that she was a lady born ; so 
he only jumped round and round her till he was quite 
tired. 

And then they began telling each other all their story 
—how he had got into the water, and she had fallen over 
the rock ; and how he had swum down to the sea, and 
how she had flown out of the window; and how this, that. 






A Fairy r Fale for a Land-Baby. 


205 



■ 

1 IS 


and the other, till it was all talked out: and then they 
both began over again, and I can’t say which of the two 
talked fastest. 

* 

And then they set to work at their lessons again, and 

both liked them so well that they 
went on well till seven full vears were 

j 

past and gone. 

You may fancy that Tom was quite 
content and happy all those seven 
years; but the truth is, he was 
not. He had always one 
hing cn his mind, and 
that was—where lit¬ 
tle El lie went, when 
she went home on 
Sundays. 

j 

'To a very beauti- 
fill place, she said. 
But what was 
the beautiful 
place like, and 






G. 1 




Si 




They Began Telling •each other 
all Their Story.” 


where was it ? 
Ah ! that 


just what she 

could not say. And it is strange' but true, that no one 
can say; and that those who have been oftenest in it, or 
even nearest to it, can say least about it, and make 
people understand least what it is like. There are a good 
many folks about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom 
went afterwards), who pretend to know it from north to 
south as well as if they had been penny postmen there; 







2 06 


The Water-Babies. 


but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, nine 
hundred and ninety-nine million miles away, what they 
say cannot, concern us. 

But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrificing 
people, who really go there, can never tell you anything 
about it, save that it is the most beautiful place in all the 
world ; and, if you ask them more, they grow modest, and 
hold their peace, for fear of being laughed at; and quite 
right they are. 

So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it was 
worth all the rest of the world put together. And of 
course that only made Tom the more anxious to go like¬ 
wise. 

“ Miss Ellie,” he said at last, “ I will know why I cannot 
go with you when you go home on Sundays, or I shall 
have no peace, and give you none either.” 

“ You must ask the fairies that.” 

So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came next, 
Tom asked her. 

‘‘ Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts 
cannot go there,” she said. “ Those who go there must 
go first where they do not like, and do what they do not 
like, and help somebody they do not like.” 

“Why, did Ellie do that?” 

“ Ask her.” 

And Ellie blushed, and said, “Yes, Tom ; I did ‘not 
like coming here at first; I was so much happier at home, 
where it is always Sunday. And I was afraid of you, 
Tom, at first, because—because—” 

“ Because I was all over prickles ? But I am not 
prickly now, am I, Miss Ellie?” 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


207 

“ No,’ said Ellie. “ I like you very much now ; and I 
like coming here, too.” 

” And perhaps,” said the fairy, “you will learn to like 
going where you don't like, and helping some one that 
you don’t like, as Ellie has.” 

But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his 
head down ; for he did not see that at all. 

So when Mrs. Doasvouwouldbedoneby came, Tom 
asked her; for he thought in his little head, She is not so 
strict as her sister, and perhaps she may let me off more 
easily. 

Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow 1 and yet I don’t know why 
I should blame you, while so many grown people have 
got the very same notion in their heads. 

But, when they try it, they get just the same answer as 
Tom did. For, when he asked the second fairy, she told 
him just what the first did, and in the very same words. 

Tom was very unhappy at that. And, when Ellie went 
home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, and did 
not care to listen to the fairy’s stories about good chil¬ 
dren, though they were prettier than ever. Indeed, the 
more he overheard of them, the less he liked to listen, 
because they were all about children who did what they 
did not like, and took trouble for other people, and 
worked to feed their little brothers and sisters instead of 
caring only for their play. And, when she began to tell 
a story about a holy child in old times, who was martyred 
by the heathen because it would not worship idols, Tom 
could bear no more, and ran away and hid among the 
rocks. 

And, when Ellie came back, he was shv with her, be- 



2 08 


The Water-Babies. 


cause he fancied she looked down on him, and thought 
him a coward. And then he grew quite cross with her, 
because she was superior to him, and did what he could 
not do. And poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad; 
and at last Tom burst out crying ; but he would not tell 
her what was really in his mind. 

And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to 
know where Ellie went to ; so that he began not to care 
for his playmates, or for the sea-palace or anything else. 
But perhaps that made matters all the easier for him ; for 
he grew so discontented with everything round him that 
he did not care to stay, and did not care where he went. 

“ Well,” he said, at last, “ I am so miserable here, I’ll 
go ; if only you will go with me ? ” 

“Ah!” said Ellie, “ I wish I might; but the worst of it 
is, that the fairy says that you must go alone if you go at 
all. Now don’t poke that poor crab about, Tom ” (for he 
was feeling very naughty and mischievous), “ or the fairy 
will have to punish you.” 

Tom was very nearly saying, “ I don’t care if she 
does; ” but he stopped himself in time. 

“ I know what she wants me to do,” he said, whining 
most dolefully. “ She wants me to go after that horrid 
old Grimes. I don’t like him, that’s certain. And if I 
find him, he will turn me into a chimney-sweep again, 
I know. That’s what I have been afraid of all 
along.” 

“ No, he won’t —I know as much as that. Nobody 
can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, as 
long as they are good.” 

“Ah,” said naughty Tom, “I see what you want ; you 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


209 


arc persuading me all along to go, because you are tired 
of me, and want to get rid of me.” 

Little Elbe opened her eyes very wide at that, and they 
were all brimming over with tears. 

“ Oh, Tom, Tom ! ” she said, very mournfully—and 
then she cried, “ Oh, Tom ! where are you ? ” 

And Tom cried, “ Oh, Elbe, where are you ? ” 

For neither of them could see each other—not the 
least. Little Elbe vanished quite away, and Tom heard 
her voice calling him, and growing smaller and smaller, 
and fainter and fainter, till all was silent. 

Who was frightened then but Tom ? Fie swam 
up and down among the 



‘He Shouted after Her.’’ shouted after 

her, but she did 


not answer; he asked all the other children, but they had 
not seen her; and at last he went up to the top of the 
water and began crying and screaming for Mrs. Bedone- 
byasyoudid—which perhaps was the best thing to do—for 
she came in a moment. 

“ Oh ! ” said Tom. 


“ Oh dear, oh dear ! I have been 








2 10 


The Water-Babies. 


naughty to Ellie, and I have killed her—I know I have 
killed her.” 

“ Not quite that, ” said the fairy ; “ but I have sent her 
away home, and she will not come back again for I do 
not know how long.” 

And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea was 
swelled with his tears, and the tide was 3,954,620,819 of an 
inch higher than it had been the day before : but perhaps 
that was owing to the waxing of the moon. It may have 
been so; but it is considered right in the new philosophy, 
you know, to give spiritual causes for physical phenomena 
—especially in parlor-tables; and, of course, physical 
causes for spiritual ones, like thinking, and praying, and 
knowing right from wrong. And so they odds it till it 
comes even, as folks sav down in Berkshire. 

“ How cruel of you to send Ellie away ! ” sobbed Tom. 
“ However, I will find her again, if I go to the world’s 
end to look for her.” 

The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his 
tongue: but she took him on her lap very kindly, just as 
her sister would have done ; and put him in mind how it 
was not her fault, because she was wound up inside, like 
watches, and could not help doing things whether she 
liked or not. And then she told him how he had been in 
the nursery long enough, and must go out now and see 
the world, if he intended ever to be a man ; and how he 
must go all alone by himself, as every one else that ever 
was born has to go, and see with his own eyes, and smell 
with his own nose, and make his own bed and lie on it, 
and burn his own fingers if he put them into the fire. 
And then she told him how manv fine thing's there were 

o 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


2 11 


to be seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleas¬ 
ant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on the 
whole, successful (as, indeed, might have been expected) 
sort of a place it was, if people would only be tolerably 
brave and honest and good in it; and then she told him 
not to be afraid of anything he met, for nothing would 
harm him if he remembered all his lessons, and did what 
he knew was right. And a,t last she comforted poor 
little Tom so much that he was quite eager to go, and 
wanted to set out that minute. “Only,” he said, “if I 
might see Elbe once before I went!” 

“ Why do you want that ? ” 

“ Because—because I should be so much happier if I 
thought she had forgiven me.” 

And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Elbe, smil¬ 
ing, and looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss her; 
but was still afraid it would not be respectful, because 
she was a lady born. 

“ I am going, Elbe ! ” said Tom. “ I am going, if it is 
to the world’s end. But I don’t like going at all, and 
that’s the truth.” 

“ Pooh ! pooh ! pooh ! ” said the fairy. “ You will like 
it very web indeed, you little rogue, and you know that 
at the bottom of your heart. But if you don’t, I will 
make you like it. Come here, and see what happens to 
people who do only what is pleasant.” 

And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had all 
sorts of mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) 
the most wonderful waterproof book, full of such photo¬ 
graphs as never were seen. For she had found out pho¬ 
tography (and this is ,a fact) more than 13,598,000 years 




212 


The Water-Babies . 



before anybody was born ; ancl, what is more, her photo¬ 
graphs did not merely represent light and shade, as ours 
do, but color also, and all colors, as you may see if you 
look at a black-cock’s tail, or a butterfly’s wing, or indeed 
most things that are or can be, so to speak. And there¬ 
fore her photographs were very curious and famous, and 
the children looked with great delight for the opening of 
the book. 

And on the title-page was written, “ The History of the 
great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came 
away from the country of Hardwork, because they wanted 

to play on the Jews’ 
harp all day long.” 

In the first picture 
they saw these Doasyoulikes 
living in the land of Ready¬ 
made, at the foot of the Happy- 
go-lucky Mountains, where flap¬ 
doodle grows wild; and if you 
want to know what that is, you 
must read Peter Simple. 

They lived very much such a 
life as those jolly old Greeks 
in Sicily, whom you may see 
painted on the ancient vases, 
and really there seemed to be 
great excuses for them, for they 
had no need to work. 

Instead of houses they lived 
in the beautiful caves of tufa, and bathed in the 
warm springs three times a day; and, as for 


*• Played ox the 
Jews’ Harp.” 





A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


213 


clothes, it was so warm there that the gentlemen walked 
about in little beside a cocked hat and a pair of straps, 
or some light summer tackle of that kind ; and the ladies 
all gathered gossamer in autumn (when they were not too 
lazy) to make their winter dresses. 

They were very fond of music, but it was too much 
trouble to learn the piano or the violin ; and as for danc¬ 
ing, that would have been too great an exertion. So they sat 
on ant-hills all day long, and played on the Jews’ harp; 
and, if the ants bit them, why they just got up and went to 
the next ant-hill, till they were bitten there likewise. 

And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let the flap¬ 
doodle drop into their mouths ; and under the vines, and 
squeezed the grape-juice down their throats; and, if any 
little pigs ran about ready roasted, crying, “ Come and 
eat me,” as was their fashion in that country, they waited 
till the pigs ran against their mouths, and then took a bite, 
and were content, just as so many oysters would have 
been. 

They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came 
near their land ; and no tools, for everything was ready¬ 
made to their hand; and the stern old fairy Necessity 
never came near them to hunt them up, and make them 
use their wits, or die. 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were never 
such comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky people in 
the world. 

“ Well, that is a jolly life,” said Tom. 

“You think so?” said the fairy. “Do you see that 
great peaked mountain there behind,” said the fairy, 
“ with smoke coming out of its top? ” 














A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2I 5 


“ Yes.” 

“ And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cinders 
lying about ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then turn over the next five hundred years, and you 
will see what happens next.” 

And behold the mountain had blown up like a barrel 
of gunpowder, and then boiled over like-a kettle ; whereby 
one-third of the Doasyoulikes were blown into the air, 
and another third were smothered in ashes; so that there 
was only one-third left. 

“ You see,” said the fairy, ‘‘what comes of living on a 
burning mountain.” 

“Oh, why did you not warn them ?” said little Elbe. 

“ I did warn them all that I could. I let the smoke 
come out of the mountain ; and wherever there is smoke 
there is fire. And I laid the ashes and cinders all about; 
and wherever there are cinders, cinders may be again. 
But they did not like to face facts, my dears, as very few 
people do; and so they invented a cock-and-bull story, 
which, I am sure, I never told them, that the smoke was 
the breath of a giant, whom some gods or other had 
buried under the mountain ; and that the cinders were 
what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with ; and 
other nonsense of that kind. And, when folks are in that 
humor, I cannot teach them, save by the good old birch- 
rod.” 

And then she turned over the next five hundred years: 
and there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing as 
they liked, as before. They were too lazy to move away 
from the mountain ; so they said, If it has blown up once, 





The Water-Babies. 


216 

that is all the more reason that it should not blow up again. 
And they were few in number: but they only said, The 
more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare. However, 
that was not quite true ; for all the flapdoodle-trees were 
killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast 
pigs, who, of course, could not be expected to have little 
ones. So they had to live very hard, on nuts and roots 
which they scratched out of the ground with sticks. 
Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their ancestors 
used to do, before they came into the land of Readymade; 
but they had forgotten how to make ploughs (they had 
forgotten even how to make Jews’ harps by this time), 
and had eaten all the seed-corn which they brought out of 
the land of Hard work years since ; and of course it was 
too much trouble to go away and find more. So they 
lived miserably on roots and nuts, and all the weakly 
little children had great stomachs, and then died. 

“ Why,” said Tom, “ they are growing no better than 
savages.” 

“ And look how ugly they are all getting,” said Elbe. 

‘"Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead of 
roast beef and plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, and 
their lips grow coarse, like the poor Paddies who eat 
potatoes.” 

And she turned over the next five hundred years. 
And there they were all living up in trees, and making 
nests to keep off the rain. And underneath the trees 
lions were prowling about. 

“ Why,” said Elbe, “ the lions seem to have eaten a 
good many of them, for there are verv few left now.” 

‘'Yes,” said the fairy; “you see it was only the 





A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


217 


strongest and most active ones who could climb the trees, 
and so escape.” 

“ But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps they 
are,” said Tom ; “ they are a- rough lot as ever I saw.” 

“ Yes, they are getting very strong now ; for the ladies 
will not marry any but the very strongest and fiercest 
gentlemen, who can help them up the trees out of the 
lions’ way.” 

And she turned over the next five hundred years. 
And in that they were fewer still, and stronger, and 
fiercer; but their feet had changed shape very oddly, for 
they laid hold of the branches with their great toes, as if 
they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor uses his 
toes to thread his needle. 

The children were very much surprised, and asked the 
fairy whether that was her doing. 

“ Yes, and no,” she said, smiling. “ It was only those 
who could use their feet as well as their hands who could 
get a good living : or, indeed, get married ; so that they 
got the best of everything, and starved out all the rest; 
and those who are left keep up a regular breed of toe- 
thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or skye-terriers, or 
fancy pigeons is kept up.” 

“ But there is a hairy one among them,” said Elbe. 

“ Ah ! ” said the fairy, “ that will be a great man in his 
time, and chief of all the tribe.” 

And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, 
it was true. 

For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they 
hairier children still; and every one wished to marry 
hairy husbands, and have hairy children too; for the 




2 l8 


The IVater-JBabies. 


climate was growing so damp that none but the hairy 
ones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and 
had sore throats, and went into consumptions, before they 
could grow up to be men and women. 

Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. 
And they were fewer still. 

“ Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots,’'* 
said Ellie, “and he cannot walk upright.” . 

No more he could ; for in the same way that the shape 
of their feet had altered, the shape of their backs had 
altered also. 

“Why,” cried Tom, “ I declare they are all apes.” 

“ Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,” 
said the fairy. “ They are grown so stupid now, that 
they can hardly think: for none of them have used their 
wits for many hundred years. They have almost for¬ 
gotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid child forgot 
some of the words it heard from its stupid parents, and 
had not wits enough to make fresh words for itself. Be¬ 
side, they are grown so fierce and suspicious and brutal 
that they keep out of each other’s way, and mope and 
sulk in the dark forests, never hearing each other’s voice, 
till they have forgotten almost what speech is like. I am 
afraid they will all be apes very soon, and all by doing 
only what they liked.” 

And in the next five hundred years they were all dead 
and gone, by bad food and wild beasts and hunters; all 
except one tremendous old fellow with jaws like a jack, 
who stood full seven feet high; and M. Du Chaillu came 
up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and thump¬ 
ing his breast. And he remembered that his ancestors 





. Du Chailuu came up to Him, and Shot Him. 




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220 


The Water-Babies. 


had once been men, and tried to say, “ Am I not a man 
and a brother ? ” but had forgotten how to use his tongue; 
and then he had tried to call fora doctor, but he had for- 
gotten the word for one. So all he said was “ Ubboboo ! ” 
and died. 

And that was the end of the great and jolly nation of 
the Doasyoulikes. And, when Tom and. Ellie came to the 
end of the book, they looked very sad and solemn ; and 
they had good reason so to do, for they really fancied 
that the men were apes, and never thought, in their sim¬ 
plicity, of asking, whether the creatures had hippopotamus 
majors in their brains or not; in which case, as you have 
been told already, they could not possibly have been apes, 
though they were more apish than the apes of all aperies. 

“ But could you not have saved them from becoming 
apes ? ” said little Ellie, at last. 

“ At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved like 
men, and set to work to do what they did not like. But 
the longer they waited, and behaved like the dumb beasts, 
who only do what they like, the stupider and clumsier 
they grew; till at last they were past all cure, for they had 
thrown their own wits away. It is such things as this that 
help to make me so ugly, that I know not when I shall 
grow fair.” 

“And where are they all now?” asked Ellie. 

“ Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.” 

“Yes!” said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she 
closed the wonderful book. “ Folks say now that I can 
make beasts into men, by circumstance, and selection, and 
competition, and so forth. Well, perhaps they are right; 
and perhaps, again, they are wrong. That is one of the 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


221 


seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming 
of the Cocqcigrues ; and, at all events, it is no concern of 
theirs. Whatever their ancestors were, men they are; and 
I advise them to behave as such, and act accordingly. 
But let them recollect this, that there are two sides to every 
question, and a downhill as well as an uphill road; and, 
if I can turn beasts into men, I can, by the same laws of 
circumstance, and selection, and competition, turn men 
into beasts. You were very near being turned into a beast 
once or twice, little Tom. Indeed, if you had not made 
up your mind to go on this journey, and see the world, 
like an Englishman, I am not sure but that you would have 
ended as an eft in a pond.” 

“ Oh, dear me ! ” said Tom ; “ sooner than that, and be 
all over slime, I’ll go this minute, if it is to the world’s 
end.” 





CHAPTER VII. 


“Now,” said Tom, “ I am ready to be off, if it’s to the 
world’s end.” 

“Ah!” said the fairy, “that is a brave, good boy. 
But you must go farther than the world’s end, if you want 
to find Mr. Grimes ; for he is at the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 
You must go to Shiny Wall, and through the white gate 
that never was opened ; and then you will come to Peace- 
pool, and Mother Carey’s Haven, where the good whales 
go when they die. And there Mother Carey will tell you 
the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will 
find Mr. Grimes.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” said Tom. “ But I do not know my way 
to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.” 

“ Little boys must take the trouble to find out things 
for themselves, or they will never grow to be men ; so that 
you must ask all the beasts in the sea and the birds in the 
air, and if you have been good to them, some of them 
will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.” 

“Well,” said Tom, “ it will be a long journey, so I had 
better start at once. Good-bye, Miss Elbe ; you know I am 
getting a big boy, and I must go out and see the world.” 


224 


The Water-Babies. 


“ I know you must,” said Ellie ; “ but you will not for¬ 
get me, Tom. I shall wait here till you come.” 

And she shook hands with him, and bade him good¬ 
bye. Tom longed very much again to kiss her ; but he 
thought it would not be respectful, considering she was a 
lady born ; so he promised not to forget her : but his little 
whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going 



“A Gallant Ocean-Steamer, with a Long Cloud of Smoke.” 


out to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes : 
however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to say his 







A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


225 


So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds 
in the air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall. 
For why ? He was still too far down south. 

Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen— 
a gallant ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trail¬ 
ing behind; and he wondered how she went on without 
sails, and swam up to her to see. A school of dolphins 
were running races round and round her, going three feet 
for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall: 
but they did not know. Then he tried to find out how 
she moved, and at last he saw her screw, and was so de¬ 
lighted with it that he played under her quarter all day, 
till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the fans, and 
thought it time to move. Then he watched the sailors 
upon deck, and the ladies, with their bonnets and para¬ 
sols : but none of them could see him, because their eyes 
were not opened,—as, indeed, most people’s eyes are not. 

At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very 
pretty lady, in deep black widow’s weeds, and in her arms 
a baby. She leaned over the quarter-gallery, and looked 
back and back toward England far away; and as she 
looked she sang: 

I. 

“ Soft soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding, 

Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea ; 

Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining 
Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me. 

U. 

“ Deep deep Love, within thine 071m abyss abidmg, 

Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea ; 




226 


The Water-Babies. 


Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding , 
Shield from sorrow , sin, a?id shame my helpless babe and me.” 

Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of the air 
so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it all day. 
But as she held the baby over the gallery rail, to show 
it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling in the 
ship’s wake, lo ! and behold, the baby saw Tom. 

He was quite sure of that; for when their eyes met, 
the baby smiled and held out his hands; and Tom smiled 
and held out his hands too ; and the baby kicked and 
leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him. 

“What do you see, my darling?” said the lady; and 
her eyes followed the baby’s till she too caught sight of 
Tom, swimming about among the foam-beads below. 

She gave a little shriek and start; and then she said, 
quite quietly, “ Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the 
happiest place for them ; ” and waved her hand to Tom, 
and cried, “ Wait a little, darling, only a little: and 
perhaps we shall go with you and be at rest.” 

And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and 
talked to her, and drew her in. And Tom turned away 



“ Watched the Great Steamer Si.jde Away into the Dusk.” 









A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


227 


northward, sad and wondering; and watched the great 
steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights on board 
peep out one by one, and die out again, and the long bar 
of smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was out 
of sight. 

And he swam northward again, day after day, till at 
last he met the King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb 
growing out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth for a 
cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall; so he 
bolted his sprat head foremost, and said: 

“ If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to the 
Allalonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl. She is 
of a very ancient clan, very nearly as ancient as my own ; 
and knows a good deal which these modern upstarts 
don’t, as ladies of old houses are likely to do.” 

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Her¬ 
rings told him very kindly, for he was a courteous old 
gentleman of the old school, though he was horribly ugly, 
and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies who 
lounge in the club-house windows. 

But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he 
called after him : “ Hi! I say, can you fly ? ” 

“ I never tried, ” says Tom. “ Why ? ” 

“ Because, if you can, I should advise you to say noth¬ 
ing to the old lady about it. There ; take a hint. Good¬ 
bye.” 

And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights 
due north-west, till he came to a great codbank, the like 
of which he never saw before. The great cod lay below 
in tens of thousands, and gobbled shell-fish all day long; 
and the blue sharks roved above in hundreds, and gob- 



228 


The Water-Babies. 


blecl them when they came up. So they ate, and ate, 
and ate each other, as they had done since the making of 
the world ; for no man had come here yet to catch them, 
and find out how rich old Mother Carey is. 

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up 
on the Allalonestone, all alone. And a very grand old 
lady she was, full three feet high, and bolt upright, like 
some old Highland chieftainess. She had on a black vel¬ 
vet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and a very high 
bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breed¬ 
ing), and a large pair of white spectacles on it, which 
made her look rather odd : but it was the ancient fashion 
of her house. 

And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, 
with which she fanned herself, and complained of the 
dreadful heat; and she kept on crooning an old song to 
herself, which she learnt when she was a little baby-bird, 
long ago— 

“ Two little birds they sat on a stone, 

One swam away, and then there was one, 

With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

“ The other swam after, and then there was none. 

And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady.” 

It was “ fiew ” away, properly, and not “swam” awav: 
but, as she could not fly, she had a right to alter it. How¬ 
ever, it was a very fit song for her to sing, because she 
was a lady herself. 

Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; 
and the first thing she said was— 








“And a Very Grand Old Lady She Was.” 













































> 

















230 


The Water-Babies. 


“ Have you wings ? Can you fly ? ” 

“ Oh dear, no, ma'am ; I should not think of such thing,” 
said cunning little Tom. 

“Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, 
my dear. It is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything 
without wings. They must all have wings, forsooth, now, 
every new upstart sort of bird, and fly. What can they 
want with flying, and raising themselves above their pro¬ 
per station in life ? In the days of my ancestors no birds 
ever thought of having wings, and did very well without; 
and now they all laugh at me because I -keep to the good 
old fashion. Why, the very marrocks and dovekies have 
got wings, the vulgar creatures, and poor little ones enough 
they are; and my own cousins too, the razor-bills, who 
are gentlefolk born, and ought to know better than to ape 
their inferiors.” 

And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in 
a word edgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady 
got out of breath, and began fanning herself again ; and 
then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall ? Who should know better than I ? We 
all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when 
it was decently cold, and the climate was fit for gentlefolk ; 
but now, what with the heat, and what with these vulgar¬ 
winged things who fly up and down and eat everything, 
so that gentlepeople’s hunting is all spoilt, and one really 
cannot get one’s living, or hardly venture off the rock for 
fear of being flown against by some creature that would 
not have dared to come within a mile of one a thousand 
years ago—what was I saying ? Why, we have quite 
gone down in the world, my dear, and have nothing 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2 3 1 


left but our honor. And I am the last of my family. 
A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock 
when we were young, to be out of the way of low people. 
Once we were a great nation, and spread over all the 
Northern Isles. But men shot us so, and knocked us on 
the head, and took our eggs—why, if you will believe it, 
they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors used to 
lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their 
ship, and drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we 
tumbled down into the ship’s waist in heaps ; and then, I 
suppose, they ate us, the nasty fellows! Well—but— 
what was I saying ? At last, there were none of us left, 
except on the old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland 
coast, up which no man could climb. Even there we had 
no peace ; for one day, when I was quite a young girl, 
the land rocked, and the sea boiled, and the sky grew 
dark, and all the air was filled with smoke and dust, and 
down tumbled the old Gairfowlskerry into the sea. The 
dovekies and marrocks, of course, all flew away ; but we 
were too proud to do that. Some of us were dashed to 
pieces, and some drowned ; and those who were left got 
away to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead 
now, and that another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the 
sea close to the old one, but that it is such a poor flat place 
that it is not safe to live on: and so here I am left alone.” 

This was the Gairfowl’s story, and strange as it may 
seem, it is every word of it true. 

“If you only had had wings? ” said Tom ; “ then you 
might all have flown away too.” 

“ Yes, young gentleman : and if people are not gentle¬ 
men and ladies,and forget that noblesse oblige, they will find it 



232 


The Water-Babies. 



as easy to get on in the world as other people who don’t 
care what they do. Why, if I had not recollected that 
noblesse oblige, I should not have been all alone now.” 
And the poor old lady sighed. 

“ How was that, ma’am ? ” 

“ Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and 
after we had been here some time, he wanted to marry— 
in fact, he actually proposed to me. W T ell, I can’t blame 
him ; I was young, and very handsome 
- then, I don’t deny: but you see, I 
could not hear of such a thing, be¬ 
cause he was my deceased sister’s 
husband, you see ? ” 

“ Of course not, ma’am,” said Tom ; 
though, of course, he knew nothing 
about it. “ She was very much dis¬ 
eased, I suppose ? ” 

“ You do not understand me, my 
dear. I mean, that being a lady, and 
with right and honorable feelings, as 
our house always has had, I felt it my 
duty to snub him, and howk him, and 
peck him continually, to keep him at 
his proper distance; and, to tell the 
truth, I once pecked him a little too 
hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled 
backwards off the rock, and—really, 
it was very unfortunate, but it was 
not my fault—a shark coming by saw 
him flapping, and snapped him up. 
gairfowlskerry .' 5 And since then I have lived all alone— 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Paby. 


233 


‘ With a fal-lal-la-iady. ’ 

And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody will 
miss me; and then the poor stone will be left all alone.” 
“ But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall ? ” said 

Tom. 

“Oh, you must go, my little dear—you must go. Let 
me see—I am sure—that is—really, my poor old brains 



“ Mother Carey’s own Chickens.” 


are getting quite puzzled. Do you know, my little dear, I 
am afraid, if you want to know, you must ask some of 
these vulgar birds about, for I have quite forgotten.” 

And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of pure 
oil; and Tom was quite sorry for her; and for himself too, 
for he was at his wit’s end whom to ask. 

But by there came a flock of petrels, who are Mother 





234 


The Water-Babies. 


Carey’s own chickens; and Tom thought them much pret¬ 
tier than Lady Gairfowl, and so perhaps they were ; for 
Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh experience 
between the time that she invented the Gairfowl and the 
time that she invented them. They flitted along like a flock 
of black swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to 
wave, lifting up their little feet behind them so daintily, 
and whistling to each other so tenderly, that Tom fell in 
love with them at once, and called them to know the way 
to Shiny Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall ? Do you want Shiny Wall ? Then come 
with us, and we will show you. We are Mother Carey’s 
own chickens, and she sends us out over all the seas, to 
show the good birds the way home.” 

Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he had 
made his bow to the Gairfowl. But she would not 
return his bow : but held herself bolt upright, and wept 
tears of oil as she sang: 

“ And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady .” 

But she was wrong there; for the stone was not left all 
alone : and the next time that Tom goes by it, he will see 
a sight worth seeing. 

The old Gairfowl is gone already : but there are better 
things come in her place ; and when Tom comes he will 
see the fishing-smacks anchored there in hundreds, from 
Scotland, and from Ireland, and from the Orkneys, and 
the Shetlands, and from all the Northern ports, full of the 
children of the old Norse Vikings, the masters of the sea. 
And the men will be hauling in the great cod by thou- 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2 35 


sands, till their hands are sore from the lines; and they 
will be making cod-liver oil and guano, and salting down 
the fish ; and there will be a man-of-war steamer there to 
protect them, and a lighthouse to show them the way; 
and you and I perhaps, shall go some day to the. Allalone- 
stone to the great summer sea-fair, and dredge strange 
creatures such as man never saw before; and we shall 
hear the sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in 
Queen Victoria’s crown, for there are eighty miles of cod- 
bank, and food for all the poor folk in the land. That is 



“See the Fishing-Smacks.” 


what Tom will see, and perhaps you and I shall see it too. 
And then we shall not be sorry because we cannot get a 
Gairfowl to stuff, much less find gairfowl enough to drive 
them into stone pens and slaughter them, as the old 
Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank till 
the ship was victualled with them as the old English and 
French rovers used to do, of whom dear old Hakluyt 
tells; but we shall remember what Mr. Tennyson says: how 





2 3 6 


The Water-Babies. 


“ The old order changeth , giving place to the new, 

And Godfulfils himself in many ways.” 

And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall ; 
but the petrels said no. They must go first to Allfowls- 
ness, and wait there for the great gathering of all the sea¬ 
birds, before they start for their summer breeding-places 
far away in the Northern Isles; and there they would be 
sure to find some birds which were going to Shiny Wall : 
but where Allfowlsness was, he must promise never to tell, 
lest men should go there and shoot the birds, and stuff 
them, and put them into stupid museums, instead of leav¬ 
ing them to play and breed and work in Mother Carey’s 
water-garden, where they ought to be. 

So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all 
that is to be said about it is, that Tom waited there many 
days; and as he waited, he saw a very curious sight. On 
the rabbit burrows on the shore there gathered hundreds 
and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as you see in 
Cambridgeshire. And they made such a noise, that Tom 
came on shore and went up to see what was the matter. 

And there he found them holding their great caucus, 
which they hold every year in the North; and all their 
stump-orators were speechifying; and for a tribune, the 
speaker stood on an old sheep’s skull. 

And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the 
clever things they had done ; how many lambs’ eyes they 
had picked out, and how many dead bullocks they had 
eaten, and how many young grouse they had swallowed 
whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away 
with, stuck on the point of their bills, which is the hoodie- 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


237 


crow’s particularly clever feat, of which he is as proud as 
a gipsy is of doing the hokanybaro; and what that is, I 
won’t tell you. 

And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest 
young lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in the 
middle, and all began abusing and vilifying, and rating, 
and bullyragging at her, because she had stolen no grouse- 
eggs, and had actually dared to say that she would not 
steal any. So she was to be tried publicly by their laws 
(for the hoodies always try some __ 
their great yearly parliament), 
she stood in the middle, in her 
and gray hood, looking as meek 
as a Quakeress, and they ^ 


offenders in 
And there 
black gown 
and as neat 
all bawled 


at her at once- 



m vain 
pleaded— 


And it 
that 


she 


■ Holding their Great Caucus.” 


That she did not like 
grouse-eggs ; 

That she could get her liv¬ 
ing very well without them; 

That she was afraid to eat 
them , for fear of the game- 
keepers ; 

That she had not the heart 
to eat them , because the grouse 
were such pretty , kind , jolly 
birds ; 

And a dozen reasons more. 



238 


The Water-Babies. 


For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked 
her to death there and then, before Tom could come to help 
her; and then flew away, very proud of what they had done. 

Now, was not this a scandalous transaction ? 

But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do 
every one just what he likes, and make other people do so 
too; so that, for any freedom of speech, thought, or 
action, which is allowed among them, they might as well 
be American citizens of the new school. 

But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine 
new sets of feathers running, and turned her at last into 
the most beautiful bird of paradise with a green velvet 
suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat fruit in the Spice 
Islands, where cloves and nutmegs grow. 

And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with 
the wicked hoodies. For, as they flew away, what should 
they find but a nasty dead dog ?—on which they all set to 
work, pecking and gobbling and cawing and quarreling to 
their hearts’ content. But the moment afterwards, they 
all threw up their bills into the air, and gave one screech; 
and then turned head over heels backward, and fell down 
dead, one hundred and twenty-three of them at once. 
For why? The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream, 
to fill the dead dog full of strychnine; and so he did. 

And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowls- 
ness, in thousands and tens of thousands, blackening all 
the air; swans and brant geese, harlequins and eiders, 
harolds and garganeys, smews and goosanders, divers 
and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks and razor-bills, 
gannets and petrels, skuas and terns, with gulls beyond 
all naming or numbering ; and they paddled and washed 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


239 



and splashed and combed and brushed themselves on 
the sand, till the shore was white with feathers; and they 
quacked and clucked and gabbled and chattered and 
screamed and whooped as they talked over matters with 
their friends, and settled where they 
were to go and breed that summer, 
till you might have heard them ten 
miles off; and lucky it was for them 
that there was no one to hear them 
but the old keeper, who lived all alone 
upon the Ness, in a turf hut thatched 
with heather and fringed round with 
great stones slung across the roof by 
bent-ropes, lest the winter gales 
should blow the hut right away. 
But he never minded the birds 
nor hurt them, because they 
were not in season ; indeed, 
he minded but two things in 
the whole world, and those 
were, his Bible and his grouse ; 
for he was as good an 
old Scotchman as ever 
knit stockings on a win¬ 
ter’s night: only, when 

“In a Turf Hut Thatched with all th e birds Were Sfoingf, 

Heather.” ® 

he toddled out, and took 
off his cap to them, and wished them a merry journey and 
a safe return; and then gathered up all the feathers 
which they had left, and cleaned them to sell down south, 
and make feather-beds for stuffy people to lie on. 








240 


The Water-Babies. 


Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they 
would take Tom to Shiny Wall: but one set was going to 
Sutherland, and one to the Shetlands, and one to Norway, 
and one to Spitzbergen, and one to Iceland, and one to 
Greenland: but none would goto Shiny Wall. So the 
good-natured petrels said that they would show him part 
of the way themselves, but they were only going as far as 
Jan Mayen’s Land; and after that he must shift for him¬ 
self. 

, And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away in 
long black lines, north, and north-east, and north-west, 



“ Then all the Birds Rose Up, and Streamed Away.” 


across the bright blue summer sky; and their cry was like 
ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten thousand peals of 
bells. Only the puffins stayed behind, and killed the 
young rabbits, and laid their eggs in the rabbit-burrows ; 
which was rough practice, certainly; but a man must see 
to his own family. 

And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


241 


began to blow right hard; for the old gentleman in the 
gray great-coat, who looks after the big copper boiler, in 
the gulf of Mexico, had got behindhand with his work ; so 
Mother Carey had sent an electric message to him for 
more steam ; and now the steam was coming, as much in 
an hour as ought to have come in a week, puffing and 
roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not see 
where the sky ended and the sea began. But Tom and 
the petrels never cared, for the gale was right abaft, and 
away they went over the crests of the billows, as merry as 
so many flying-fish. 

And at last they saw an ugly sight—the black side of a 
great ship, water-logged in the trough of the sea. Her 
funnel and her masts were overboard, and swayed and 
surged under her lee; her decks were swept as clean as a 
barn floor, and there was no living soul on board. 

The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; for 
they were very sorry indeed, and also they expected to 
find some salt pork; and Tom scrambled on board of her 
and looked round, frightened and sad. 

And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bul¬ 
wark, lay a baby fast asleep; the very same baby, Tom 
saw at once, which he had seen in the singing lady’s 
arms. 

He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but behold, 
from under the cot out jumped a little black and tan ter¬ 
rier dog, and began barking and snapping at Tom, and 
would not let him touch the cot. 

Tom knew the dog’s teeth could not hurt him : but at 
least it could shove him away, and did; and he and the 
dog fought and struggled, for he wanted to help the baby, 




242 


The Water-Babies. 


and did not want to throw the poor dog overboard: but 
as they were struggling, there came a tall green sea, and 
walked in over the weather side of the ship, and swept 
them all into the waves. 

“Oh, the baby, the baby!” screamed Tom: but the 
next moment he did not scream at all; for he saw the cot 
settling down through the green water, with the baby, 
smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw the fairies come up 



“A Great Ship, Water-logged in the Trough of the Sea.” 


from below, and carry baby and cradle gently down in 
their soft arms; and then he knew it was all right, and 
that there would be a new water-baby in St. Brandan’s 
Isle. 

And the poor little dog ? 

Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he 
sneezed so hard, that he sneezed himself clean out of his 
skin, and turned into a water-dog, and jumped and 
danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the waves, 
and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, and fol¬ 
lowed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


243 


Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak 
of Jan Mayen’s Land, standing up like a white sugar-loaf, 
two miles above the clouds. 

And there they fell in with a whole flock of mollymocks, 
who were feeding on a dead whale. 

“These are the fellows to show you the way,” said 
Mother Carey’s chickens ; “ we cannot help you farther 
north. We don’t like to get among the ice pack, for fear 
it should nip our toes : but the mollys dare fly anywhere.” 

So the petrels called to the mollys : but they were so 
busy and greedy, gobbling and pecking and spluttering 
and fighting over the blubber, that they did not take the 
least notice. 

“ Come, come,” said the petrels, “ you lazy greedy 
lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother Carey, 
and if yo*u don’t attend on him, you won’t earn your dis¬ 
charge from her, you know.” 

“ Greedy we are,” says a great fat old molly, “ but lazy 
we ain’t; and, as for lubbers, we’re no more lubbers than 
you. Let’s have a look at the lad.” 

And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared at him 
in the most impudent way (for the mollys are audacious 
fellows, as all whalers know), and then asked him where 
he hailed from, and what land he sighted last. 

And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said 
he was a good plucked one to have got so far. 

“Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, “and give 
this little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother Carey’s 
sake. We’ve eaten blubber enough for to-day, and we’ll 
e’en work out a bit of our time by helping the lad.” 

So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off 




The Water-Babies. 


244 


with him, laughing and joking—and oh, how they did 
smell of train oil! 

“ Who are you, you jolly birds ? ” asked 

Tom. 

“ We are the spirits of the old 

Greenland skippers (as every sailor 


Knows;, wno 

whales 

• f numea nere, rignr 

and horse-whales, 
__ , „• , , , 


years agone. But, 


' 

- , because we were 

saucy and greedy, 
we were all turned 


1into mollys, to 
\ v eat whale’s 

blubber all 

Wm$mP our days. 

M SSpPp' But lubbers we are none, and 

Hr could sail a ship now against 

any man in the North seas, though 
we don’t hold with this new- 


“Let’s Have a Loos at fangled steam. And it’s a shame 
the lad. G f t ] lose i m p S 0 f petrels to 

call us so; but because they’re her grace’s pets, they 
think they may say anything they like.” 

“ And who are you ? ” asked Tom of him, for he saw 
that he was the king of all the birds. 

“My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good 
skipper was I; and my name will last to the world’s end, 
in spite of all the wrong I did. Fori discovered Hudson 
River, and I named Hudson’s Bay; and many have come 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


245 


in my wake that dared not have shown me the way. But 
I was a hard man in my time, that’s truth, and stole the 
poor Indians off the coast of Maine, and sold them for 
slaves down in Virginia ; and at last I was so cruel to my 
sailors, here in these very seas, that they set me adrift in 
an open boat, and I never was heard of more. So now 
I’m the king of all mollys, till I’ve worked out my time.” 

And now they came to the edge of the pack, and 
beyond it they could see Shiny Wall looming, through 
mist, and snow, and storm. But the pack rolled horribly 
upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and roared, and 
leapt upon each other’s backs, and ground each other to 
powder, so that Tom was afraid to venture among them, 
lest he should be ground to powder too. And he was the 
more afraid, when he saw lying among the ice pack the 
wrecks of many a gallant ship; some with masts and 
yards all standing, some with the seamen frozen fast on 
board. Alas, alas, for them ! They were all true Eng¬ 
lish hearts ; and they came to their end like good knights- 
errant, in searching for the white gate that never was 
opened yet. 

But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and 
flew with, them safe over the pack and the roaring ice 
giants, and set them down at the foot of Shiny Wall. 

“ And where is the gate ? ” asked Tom. 

“There is no gate,” said the mollys. 

“ No gate ? ” cried Tom, aghast. 

“ None ; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole of 
the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have found to 
their cost; and if there had been, they’d have killed by 
now every right whale that swims the sea.” 



246 


The Water-Babies. 



“ What am I to do, then ? ” 

“ Dive under the fioe, to be sure, if you have pluck.” 

“ I’ve not come so far to turn now,” said Tom ; “ so 
here goes for a header.” 

“A lucky voyage to you, lad,” said the mollys ; “we 
knew you were one of the right sort. So good-bye.” 

“ Why don’t you come too ? ” asked Tom. 


“Here Goes for a Header.'’ 

But the mollys only wailed sadly, “ We can’t go yet, we 
can’t go yet,” and flew away over the pack. 

So Tom dived under the great white gate which never 
was opened yet, and went on in black darkness, at the 
bottom of the sea ; for seyen days and seven nights. And 






A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


247 


yet he was not a bit frightened. Why should he be ? 
He was a brave English lad, whose business is to go out 
and see all the world. 

And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water 
overhead; and up he came a thousand fathoms, among 
clouds of sea-moths, which fluttered round his head. 
There were moths with pink heads and wings and opal 
bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown 
wings that flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps that 
hopped and skipped most quickly of all; and jellies of 
all the colors in the world, that neither hopped nor 
skipped, but only dawdled and yawned, and would not 
get out of his way. The dog snapped at them till his 
jaws were tired; but Tom hardly minded them at all, he 
was so eager to get to the top of the water, and see the 
pool where the good whales go. 

And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, 
though the air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the 
opposite side looked as if they were close at hand. All 
round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and spires and battle¬ 
ments, and caves and bridges, and stories and galleries, 
in which the ice-fairies live, and drive away the storms 
and clouds, that Mother Carey’s pool*may lie calm from 
year’s end to year’s end. And the sun acted policeman, 
and walked round outside every day, peeping just over 
the top of the ice wall, to see that all went right; and now 
and then he played conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition 
of fireworks, to amuse the ice-fairies. For he would make 
himself into four or five suns r?t once, or paint the sky 
with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and 
stick himself in the middle of them, and wink at the 










Walls and Spires and Battlements, and Caves and Bridges 





A Fairy I'ale for a Land-Baby. 


249 


fairies; and I daresay they were very much amused ; for 
anything’s fun in the country. 

And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy 
beasts, upon the still oily sea. They were all right 
whales, you must know, and finners, and razor-backs, and 
bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long ivory 
horns. But the sperm whales are such raging, ramping, 
roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let 
them in, there would be no more peace in Peacepool. So 
she packs them away in a great pond by themselves at 
the South Pole, two hundred and sixty-three miles south- 
south-east of Mount Erebus, the great volcano in the ice; 
and there they butt each other with their ugly noses, day 
and night from year’s end to year’s end. 

But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying about 
like the black hulls of sloops, and blowing every now 
and then jets of white steam, or sculling round with their 
huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to swim down 
their throats. There were no threshers there to thresh 
their poor old backs, or sword-fish to stab their stomachs, 
or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice-sharks to bite lumps out 
of their sides, or whalers to harpoon and lance them. 
They were quite safe and happy there ; and all they had 
to do was to wait quietly in Peacepool, till Mother Carey 
sent for them to make them out of old beasts into new. 

Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the way 
to Mother Carey. 

“ There she sits in the middle,” said the whale. 

Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle 
of the pool, but one peaked iceberg : and he said so. 

“That’s Mother Carey,” said the whale, “as you will 



250 


Ihe Water-Babies. 


find when you get to her. There she sits making old 
beasts into new all the year round.” 

“ How does she do that ? ” 

“That’s her concern, not mine,” said the old whale; 
and yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there 
swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish no 
bigger than pins’ heads, a string of salpae nine yards long, 
and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave each other a part¬ 
ing pinch all round, tucked their legs under their stomachs, 
and determined to die decently, like Julius Caesar.. 

“ I suppose,” said Tom, “ she cuts up a great whale 
like you into a whole shoal of porpoises ? ” 

At which the old whale laughed so violently that he 
coughed up all the creatures ; who swam away again very 
thankful at having escaped out of that terrible whalebone 
net of his,, from which bourne no traveller returns ; and 
Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering. 

And, when he came near it, it took the form of the 
grandest old lady he had ever seen—-a white marble lady 
sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot of 
the throne there swum away, out and out into the sea, 
millions of new-born creatures of more shapes and colors 
than man ever dreamed. And they were Mother Carey’s 
children, whom she makes out of the sea-water all day 
long. 

He expected, of course—like some grown people who 
ought to know better—to find her snipping, piecing, fit¬ 
ting, stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammer¬ 
ing, turning, polishing, moulding, measuring, chiselling, 
clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go to work 
to make anything. 




“That’s Mother Carey,” 





252 


The Water-Babies. 


But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin 
upon her hand, looking down into the sea with two great 
grand blue eyes, as blue as the sea itself. Her hair was 
as white as the snow—for she was very very old—in fact, 
as old as anything which you are likely to come across, 
except the difference between right and wrong. 

And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very 
kindly. 

“ What do you want, my little man ? It is long since 
I have seen a water-baby here.” 

Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the 
Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

“ You ought to know yourself, for you have been there 
already.” 

“ Have I, ma’am ? I’m sure I forget all about it.” 

“ Then look at me.” 

And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he 
recollected the way perfectly. 

Now, was not that strange ? 

“ Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom. “ Then I won’t 
trouble your ladyship any more; I hear you are very 
busy.” 

“ I am never more busy than I am now,” she said, 
without stirring a finger. 

“ I heard, ma’am, that you were always making new 
beasts out of old.” 

“ So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble my¬ 
self to make things, my little dear. 1 sit here and make 
them make themselves.” 

“ You are a clever fairy, indeed,” thought Tom. And 
he was quite right. 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


253 


That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey’s, and 
a grand answer, which she has had occasion to make 
several times to impertinent people. 

There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so clever 
that she found out how to make butterflies. I don’t 
mean sham ones; no : but real live ones, which would fly, 
and eat, and lay eggs, and do everything that they 
ought; and she was so proud of her skill that she went 
flying straight off to the North Pole, to boast to Mother 
Carey how she could make butterflies. 

But Mother Carey laughed. 

“ Know, silly child,” she said, “ that any one can 
make things, if they will take time and trouble enough : 
but it is not every one who, like me, can make things 
make themselves.” 

But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey is as 
clever as all that comes to; and they will not till they, 
too, go the journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

“ And now, my pretty little man,” said Mother Carey, 
“you are sure you know the way to the Other-end-of No¬ 
where.” 

Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it utterly. 

“ That is because you took your eyes off me.” 

Tom looked at her again, and recollected ; and then 
looked aw r ay, and forgot in an instant. 

“But what am I to do, ma’am ? For I can’t keep look¬ 
ing at you when I am somewhere else.” 

“You must do without me, as most people have to do, 
for nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of their 
lives; and look at the dog instead; for he knows the way 
well enough, and will not forget it. Besides, you may 



254 


The Water-Babies. 


meet some very queer-tempered people there, who will 
not let you pass without this passport of mine, which you 
must hang round your neck and take care of ; and, of 
course, as the dog will always go behind you, you must 
go the whole way backward.” 

“ Backward ! ” cried Tom. “ Then I shall not be able 
to see my way.” 

“ On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not see 
a step before you, and be certain to go wrong; but, if 
you look behind you, and watch carefully whatever you 
have passed, and especially keep your eye on the dog, 
who goes by instinct, and therefore can’t go wrong, then 
you will know what is coming next, as plainly as if you 
saw it in a looking-glass.” 

Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, 
for he had learnt always to believe what the fairies told 
him. 

“ So it is, my dear child,” said Mother Carey ; “ and I 
will tell you a story, which will show you that I am per¬ 
fectly right, as it is my custom to be. 

“ Once on a time, there were two brothers. One was 
called Prometheus, because he always looked before him, 
and boasted that he was wise beforehand. The other 
was called Epimetheus, because he always looked be¬ 
hind him, and did not boast at all; but said humbly, like 
the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy after the 
event. 

“Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of course, 
and invented all sorts of wonderful things. But, un¬ 
fortunately, when they were set to work, to work was 
just what they would not do: wherefore very little has 



2 55 


Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


come of them, and very little is left of them ; and now 
nobody knows what they were, save a few archaeological 
old gentlemen who scratch in queer corners and find 
little there save Ptinum Furem, 

Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum 
Horridum, and Tineam Lacinia- 
rum. 

“ But Epimetheus was a very 
slow fellow, certainly, and 
went among men for a 
clod, and a muff, and a milk¬ 
sop, and a slow coach, and a bloke, 
and a boodle, and so forth. And 
very little he did, for many years : 
but what he did, he never had to 
do over again. 

“And what happened at last? 

There came to the two brothers 
the most beautiful creature that 
ever was seen, Pandora by name ; 
which means, All the gifts of the 
Gods. But because she had a 
strange box in her hand, this 
fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, 
prudential, theoretical, deductive, 
prophesying Prometheus, who 

was always settling what was going to happen, would have 
nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her box. 

“ But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took every¬ 
thing that came ; and married her for better for worse, as 
every man ought, whenever he has even the chance of a 



Prometheus." 






256 


The Water-Babies. 


good wife. And they opened the box between them, of 
course, to see what was inside : for, else, of what possible 
use could it have been to them ? 

“ And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all the 
children of the four great bogies, Self-will, Ignorance, 
Fear, and Dirt—for instance : 


Measles, 

Monks, 

Scarlatina, 

Idols , 

Hooping-coughs , 

Popes , 

Wars, 

Peacemongers, 

And, worst of all, Naug 


Famines , 
Quacks, 

Unpaid bills, 
Tight Stays , 
Potatoes, 

Bad Wine , 
Despots, 
Demagogues, 
hty Boys and Girls. 


But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and 
that was, Hope. 

“ So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as most 
men do in this world : but he got the three best things in 
the world into the bargain—a good wife, and experience, 
and hope: while Prometheus had just as much trouble, 
and a great deal more (as you will hear), of his own mak¬ 
ing ; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of his 
own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach. 

“ And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far 
ahead, that as he was running about with a box of luci- 
fers (which were the only useful things he ever invented, 
and do as much harm as good), he trod on his own nose, 
and tumbled down (as most deductive philosophers do), 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


257 


whereby he sat the Thames on fire; and they have 
hardly put it out again yet. So he had to be chained to 
the top of a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him 
a peck whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole 
world upside down with his prophecies and his theories. 

“ But stupid old Epimetheus went working and grub¬ 
bing on, with the help of his wife Pandora, always look¬ 
ing behind him to see what had happened, till he really 
learnt to know now and then what would happen next; 
and understood so well which side his bread was but¬ 
tered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began to 
make things which would work, and go on working, too; 
to till and drain the ground, and to make looms, and 
ships, and railroads, and steam ploughs, and electric tel¬ 
egraphs, and all the things which you see in the Great Ex¬ 
hibition ; and to foretell famine, and bad weather, and the 
price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the next va¬ 
gary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public 
Opinion; till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat 
as a farmer, and people thought twice before they med¬ 
dled with him, but only once before they asked him to 
help, them; for, because he earned his money well, he 
could afford to spend it well likewise. 

“And his children are the men of science, who get 
good lasting work done in the world ; but the children of 
Prometheus are the fanatics, and the theorists, and the 
bigots, and the bores, and the noisy windy people, who go 
telling silly folk what will happen, instead of looking to 
see what has happened already.” 

Now, was not Mother Carey’js a wonderful story? 
And, I am happy to say, Tom believed it every word. 



The Water-Babies. 


258 


For so it happened to Tom likewise. He was very 
sorely tried; for though, by keeping the dog to heels (or 
rather to toes, for he had to walk backward), he could 
see pretty well which way the dog was hunting, yet it 
was much slower work to go backwards than to go for¬ 
wards. But, what was more trying still, no sooner had he 
got out of Peacepool, than there came running to him all 
the conjurors, fortune-tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, 
projectors, prestigiators, as many as were in those parts 



“Old Mother Shipton on Her Broomstick." 


(and there are too many of them everywhere), Old 
Mother Shipton on her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas 
the Rhymer, Gerbertus, Rabanus Maurus, Nostradamus, 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


259 


Zadkiel, Raphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many 
in black coats and white ties who might have known 
better, considering in what century they were born, all 
bawling and screaming at him, “ Look a-head, only look 
a-head; and we will show you what man never saw be¬ 
fore, and right away to the end of the world ! ” 

But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not been 
to Cambridge—for, if he had, he would have certainly been 
senior wrangler—he was such a little dogged, hard, 
gnarly, foursquare brick of an English boy, that he 
never turned his head round once all the way from 
Peacepool to the Other-end-of-Nowhere : but kept his 
eye on the dog, and let him pick out the scent, hot or 
cold, straight or crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down 
dale; by which means he never made a single mistake, 
and saw all the wonderful and hitherto by-no-mortal-man- 
imagined things, which it is my duty to relate to you in 
the next chapter. 








CHAPTER VIII and LAST. 


Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied account 
of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of the wonder¬ 
ful things which Tom saw on his journey to the Other- 
end-of Nowhere; which all good little children are 
requested to read ; that, if ever they get to the Other-end- 
of-Nowhere, as they may very probably do, they may not 
burst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any other 
silly vulgar thing which may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyou- 
did. 

Now, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to 
the white lap of the great sea-mother, ten thousand 
fathoms deep; where she makes world-pap all day long, 
for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants to bake, 
till it has risen and hardened into mountain-loaves and 
island-cakes. 

And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in 
the world-pap, and turned into a fossil water-baby; which 
would have astonished the Geological Society of New 
Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years hence. 

For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twi¬ 
light, on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of a 


262 


The Water-Babies. 


hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a pumping, 
as of all the steam-engines in the world at once. And, 
when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot; not that 
that hurt him in the least: but it also grew as foul as 
gruel; and every moment he stumbled over dead shells, 
and fish, and sharks, and seals, and whales, which had 
been killed by the hot water. 

And at last he came to the great sea-serpent himself, 
lying dead at the bottom; and as he was too thick to 
scramble over, Tom had to walk round him three-quarters 
of a mile and more, w r hich put him out of his path sadly ; 
and, when he had got round, he came to the place called 
Stop. And there he stopped, and just in time. 

For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom of 
the sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear steam 
enough to work all the engines in the world at once; so 
clear, indeed, that it was quite light at moments ; and 
Tom could see almost up to the top of the water above, 
and down below into the pit for nobody knows how far. 



Qreat Sea-Serpent Himself, Lying Dear at t^ Hottqm,” 








A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


263 


But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he got 
such a rap on the nose from pebbles, that he jumped 
back again ; for the steam, as it rushed up, rasped away 
the sides of the hole, and hurled it up into the sea in a 
shower of mud and gravel and ashes; and then it spread 
all around, and sank again, and covered in the dead fish 
so fast, that before Tom had stood there five minutes he 
was buried in silt up to his ankles, and began to be afraid 
that he should have been buried alive. 

And perhaps he would have been, but that while he was 
thinking, the whole piece of ground on which he stood 
was torn off and blown upwards, and away flew Tom a 
mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming next. 

At last he stopped—thump! and found himself tight in 
the legs of the most wonderful bogy which he had ever 
seen. 

It had I don’t know how many wings, as big as the 
sails of a windmill, and spread out in a ring like them; 
and with them it hovered over the steam which rushed up, 
as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain. And for 
every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw like a 
comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root; and in the 
middle it had no stomach and one eye ; and as for its 
mouth, that was all on one side, as the madreporiform 
tubercle in a star-fish is. Well, it was a very strange 
beast; but no stranger than some dozens which you may 
see. 

“What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, 
“ getting in my way ? ” and it tried to drop Tom : but he 
held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer where he 


was, 




264 


Ibe Water-Babies. 


So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand was. 
And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered : 

“ I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are 
come after gold—I know you are.” 

“ Gold ! What is gold ? ” And really Tom did not 
know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe him. 

But after a while Tom began to understand a little. 
For, as the vapors came up out of the hole, the bogy 
smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and sorted 
them with his combs; and then, when they steamed up 
through them against his wings, they were changed into 
showers and streams of metal. From one wing fe}l gold- 
dust, and from another silver, and from another copper, 
and from another tin, and from another lead, and so on, 
and sank into the soft mud, into veins and cracks, and 
hardened there. Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks 
are full of metal. 

But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam below, 
and the hole was left empty in an instant • and then down 
rushed the water into the hole, in such a whirlpool that 
the bogy spun round and round as fast as a teetotum. 
But that was all in his day’s work, like a fair fall with the 
hounds; so all he did was to say to Tom— 

“ Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you are 
in earnest, which I don’t believe.” 

“ You’ll soon see,” said Tom ; and away he went, as bold 
as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rushing cata¬ 
ract like a salmon at Ballisodare. 

And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till he was 
washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of-Nowhere ; 
and he found it, to his surprise, as most other people do, 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


265 


much more like This-End-of-Somewhere than he had been 
in the habit of expecting. 

And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where all 
the stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, like 
leaves in a winter wood ; and there he saw people digging 
and grubbing among them, to make worse books out of 
bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the dust of it; and 
a very good trade they drove thereby especially among 
children. 



“ Waste-Paper-Land.” 


Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain of 
messes, and the territory of tuck, where the ground was 
very sticky, for it was all made of bad toffee (not Ever- 
ton toffee, of course), and full of deep cracks and holes 
choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green gooseberries, 
and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips and haws, 






266 


The Water-Babies. 


and all the nasty things which little children will eat, if 
they can get them. But the fairies hide them out of the 
way in that country as fast as they can, and very hard 
work they have, and of very little use it is. For as fast 
as they hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked 
people make fresh trash full of lime and poisonous paints, 
and actually go and steal receipts out of old Madame 
Science’s big book to invent poisons for little children, 
and sell them at wakes and fairs and tuck-shops. Very 
well. Let them go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall 
cannot catch them, though they are setting traps for them 
all day long. But the Fairy with the birch-rod will catch 
them all in time, and make them begin at one corner of 
their shops, and eat their way out at the other : by which 
time they will have got such stomach-aches as will cure 
them of poisoning little children. 

Next he saw all the little people in the world, writing 
all the little books in the world, about all the other little 
people in the world ; probably because they had no great 
people to write about: and if the names of the books 
were not Squeeky, nor the Pump-lighter, nor the Narrow 
Narrow World, nor the Hills of the Chattermuch, nor 
the Children’s Twaddeday, why then they were something 
else. And all the rest of the little people in the world 
read the books, and thought themselves each as good as 
the President; and perhaps they were right, for every one 
know's his own business best. But Tom thought he 
would sooner have a jolly good fairy tale, about Jack the 
Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which taught him 
something that he didn’t know already. 

And next he came to the centre of Creation (the hub, 



267 


A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 

they call it there), which lies in latitude 42’21° south, 
and longitude io 8’56° east. 

And there he found all the wise people instructing man¬ 
kind in the science of spirit-rapping, while their house 
was burning over their heads : and when Tom told them of 
the fire, they held an indignation meeting forthwith, and 
unanimously determined to hang Tom’s dog for coming 
into their country with gunpowder in 
his mouth. Tom couldn’t help say¬ 
ing that though they did fancy they 
had carried all the wit away with them 
out of Lincolnshire two hundred years 
ago, yet if they had had one Such 
Lincolnshire nobleman among them 
as good old Lord Yarborough, he 
would have called for the fire-engines 
before he hanged other people’s dogs. 

But it was of no use, and the dog was 
hanged : and Tom couldn’t even have 
his carcase ; for they had abolished 
the have-his-carcase act in that coun¬ 
try, for fear lest when rogues fell out, 
honest men should come by their own. 

And so they would have succeeded 
perfectly, as they always do, only that 
(as they also always do, they failed in one little particular, 
viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, but bit 
their fingers so abominably that they were forced to let 
him go, and Tom likewise, as British subjects. Whereon 
they recommenced rapping for the spirits of their fathers ; 
and very much astonished the poor old spirits were when 



“The Dog was 
Hanged.” 









268 - 


The Wate?'-Babies. 


they came, and saw how, according to the laws of Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid, their descendants had weakened their 
constitution by hard living. 

Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne 
(which some call Rogues’ Harbor ; but they are wrong ; 
for that is in the middle of Bramshill Bushes, and the 
county police have cleared it out long ago). There every 
one knows his neighbor’s business better than his own ; 
and a very noisy place it is, as might be expected, con¬ 
sidering that all the inhabitants are ex officio on the 
wrong side of the house in the “ Parliament of Man, and 
the Federation of the World ; ” and are always making 
wry mouths, and crying that the fairies’ grapes were 
sour. 

There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driving 
hammers, birds’ nests taking boys, books making authors, 
bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving cats, dead 
dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers shelfed as prin¬ 
cipals of colleges, play-actors not in the least shelfed as 
popular preachers ; and, in short, every one set to do 
something which he had not learnt, because in what he 
had learnt, or pretended to learn, he had failed. 

There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccessful, 
from the builders of the Tower of Babel to those of the 
Trafalgar Fountains ; in which politicians lecture on the 
constitutions which ought to have marched, conspirators 
on the revolutions which ought to have succeeded, econo¬ 
mists on the schemes which ought to have made every 
one’s fortune, and projectors on the discoveries which 
ought to have set the Thames on fire. There cobblers 
lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever that may be) because 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


269 


they cannot sell their shoes; and poets on .Esthetics 
(whatsoever that may be) because they cannot sell their 
poetry. There philosophers demonstrate that England 
would be the freest and richest country in the world, if 
she would only turn Papist again; penny-a-liners abuse 
the Times, because they have not wit enough to get on its 
staff; and young ladies walk about with lockets of Charles 
the First’s hair (or of somebody else’s, when the Jews’ 
genuine stock is used up), inscribed with the neat and 
appropriate legend—which indeed is popular through all 
that land, and which, I hope, you will learn to translate in 
due time and to perpend likewise:— 

“ Victrix causa diis placuit , sed victa puellis 

When he got into the middle of the town, they all set 
on him at once, to show him his way; or rather, to show 
him that he did not know his way; for as for asking him 
what way he wanted to go, no one ever thought of 
that. 

But one pulled him hither, and another poked him 
thither, and a third cried— 

‘‘You mustn’t go west, I tell you ; it is destruction to go 
west.” 

“ But I am not going west, as you may see,” said 
Tom. 

And another, “ The east lies here, my dear; I assure 
you this is the east.” 

“ But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom. 

“Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are 
going, you are going wrong,” cried they all with one voice 



2JO 


T'he Water-Babies. 


—which was the only thing which they ever agreed 
about; and all pointed at once to all the thirty-and-two 
points of the compass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts 
in England had got together, and fallen fighting. 

And whether he would have ever escaped out of the 
town, it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into his 
head that they were going to pull his master in pieces, 
and tackled them so sharply about the gastrocnemius mus¬ 
cle, that he gave them some business of their own to 



think of at last; and while they were rubbing their bitten 
calves, Tom and the dog got safe away. 

On the borders of that island he found Gotham, where 
the wise men live ; the same who dragged the pond because 
the moon had fallen into it, and planted a hedge round 
the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. And he found 
them bricking up the town gate, because it was so wide 
that little folks could not get through. And, when he 
asked why, they told him they were expanding their lit- 





A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


271 


iirgy. So he went on ; for it was no business of his : only 
he could not help saying that in his country, if the kitten 
could not get in at the same hole as the cat, she might 
stay outside and mew. 

But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came to 
the island of the Golden Asses, where nothing but thistles 
grow. For there they were all turned into mokes with 
ears a yard long, for meddling with matters which they do 
not understand, as Lucius did in the story. And like 
him, mokes they must remain, till, by the laws of develop¬ 
ment, the thistles develop into roses. Till then, they 
must comfort themselves with the thought, that the longer 
their ears are, the thicker their hides ; and so a good 
beating don’t hurt them. 

Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in which 
are no less than thirty and odd kings, beside half a dozen 
Republics, and perhaps more by next mail. 

And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and 
destructive war waged by the princes and potentates of 
those parts, both spiritual and temporal, against what do 
you think ? One thing I am sure of. That unless I told 
you, you would never know; nor how they waged that 
war either ; for all their strategy and art military consisted 
in the safe and easy process of stopping their ears and 
screaming, “ Oh, don’t tell us ! ” and then running away. 

So when Tom came into that land, he found them all, 
high and low, man, woman, and child, running for their 
lives day and night continually, and entreating not to be 
told they didn’t know what: only the land being an 
island, and they having a dislike to the water (being a 
musty lot for the most part), they ran round and round 



272 


The Water-Babies. 


the shore for ever, which (as the island was exactly of the 
same circumference as the planet on which we have the 
honor of living) was hard work, especially to those, who 
had business to look after. But before them, as band¬ 
master and fugleman, ran a gentleman shearing a pig; 
the melodious strains of which animal led them for ever, 
if not to conquest, still to flight;' and kept up their spirits 
mightily with the thought that they would at least have 
the pig’s wool for their pains. 

And running after them, day and night, came such a 
poor, lean, seedy, hard worked old giant, as ought to have 
been cockered up, and had a good dinner given him, and 
a good wife found him, and been set to play with little 
children ; and then he would have been a very present¬ 
able old fellow after all; for he had a heart, though it was 
considerably overgrown with brains. 

He was made up principally of fish bones and parch¬ 
ment, put together with wire and Canada balsam ; and 
smelt strongly of spirits, though he never drank anything 
but water: but spirits he used somehow, there was no 
denying. He had a great pair of spectacles on his nose, 
and a butterfly-net in one hand, and a geological hammer 
in the other; and was hung all over with pockets, full of 
collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes, telescopes, barom¬ 
eters, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic 
apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything 
about everything, and a little more too. And, most 
strange of all, he was running not forwards but back¬ 
wards, as fast as he could. 

Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, who 
stood his ground and dodged between his legs; and the 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


273 


giant, when he had passed him, looked down, and cried, 
as if he was quite pleased and comforted,— 

“ What ? who are you ? And you actually don’t run 
away, like all the rest ? ” But he had to take his specta¬ 
cles off, Tom remarked, in order to see him plainly. 

Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled out a 
bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with. 

But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged between 
his legs and in front of him ; and then the giant could 
not see him at all. 

“ No, no, no ! ” said Tom, “ I’ve not been round the 
world, and through the world, and up to Mother Carey’s 
haven, beside being caught in a net and called a Holo- 
thurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by any old 
giant like you.” 

And when the giant understood what a great traveller 
Tom had been, he made a truce with him at once, and 
would have kept him there to this day to pick his brains, 
so delighted was he at finding any one to tell him what 
he did not know before. 

“ Ah, you lucky little dog! ” said he at last, quite 
simply—for he was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, 
kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a giant that ever turned 
the world upside down without intending it—“ah, you 
lucky little dog! If I had only been where you have 
been, to see what you have seen ! ” 

“Well,” said Tom, “if you want to do that, you had 
best put your head under water for a few hours, as I did, 
and turn into a water-baby, or some other baby, and then 
you might have a chance.” 

“Turn into a baby, eh ? If I could do that, and know 




274 


The Water-Babies. 


what was happening to me for but one hour, I should 
know everything then, and be at rest. But I can’t ; I 
can’t be a little child again ; and I suppose if I could, it 
would be no use, because then I should then know noth¬ 
ing about what was happening to me. Ah, you lucky 
little dog ! ” said the poor old giant. 

“ But why do you run after all these poor people ? ” 
said Lorn, who liked the giant very much. 

“ My dear, it’s they that have been running after me, 
father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, 
throwing stones at me till they have knocked off my 
spectacles fifty times, and calling me a malignant and a 
turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the 
State—goodness only knows what they mean, for I never 
read poetry—and hunting me round and round—though 
catch me they can’t, for every time I go over the same 
ground, I go the faster, and grow the bigger. While all I 
want is to be friends with them, and to tell them some¬ 
thing to their advantage, like Mr. Joseph Ady : only 
somehow they are so strangely afraid of hearing it. But, 
I suppose I am not a man of the world, and have no 
tact.” 

“ But why don’t you turn round and tell them so? ” 

“ Because I can’t. You see, I am one of the sons of 
Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go at all.” 

“ But why don’t you stop, and let them come up to 
you ? ” 

“ Why, my dear, only think. If I did, all the butter¬ 
flies and cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then I should 
catch no more new species, and should grow rusty and 
mouldy, and die. And I don’t intend to do that, my 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


275 


dear ; for I have a destiny before me, they say : though 
what it is I don’t know, and don’t care.” 

“ Don’t care ? ” said Tom. 

“ No. Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch 
the first beetle you come across, is my motto; and I have 
thriven by it for some hundred years. Now I must go on. 
Dear me, while I have been talking to you, at least nine 
new species have escaped me.” 

And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull in a 
china-shop, till he ran into the steeple of the great idol 
temple (for they are all idolaters in those parts, of course, 
else they would never be afraid of giants), and knocked 
the upper half clean off, hurting himself horribly about the 
small of the back. 

But little he cared ; for as soon as the ruins of the stee¬ 
ple were well between his legs, he poked and peered 
among the falling stones, and shifted his spectacles, and 
pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and cried— 

“An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podur- 
ellae ! Besides a moth which M. le Roi des Papillons 
(though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to hasty induc¬ 
tions) says is confined to the limits of the Glacial Drift. 
This is most important!” 

And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not being 
a man of the world) to examine his Podurellae. Whereon 
(as was to be expected) the roof caved in bodily, smash¬ 
ing the idols, and sending the priests flying out of doors 
and windows, like rabbits out of a burrow when a ferret 
goes in. 

But he never heeded ; for out of the dust flew a bat, 
and the giant had him in a moment. 



276 


The Water-Babie$. 


“ Dear me ! This is even more important! Here is a 
cognate species to that which Macgilliwaukie Brown 
insists is confined to the Buddhist temples of Little 
Thibet; and now when I look at it, it may be only a vari¬ 
ety produced by difference of climate ! ” 

And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he went, 
while all the people ran, being in none the better humor 
for having their temple smashed for the sake of three 
obscure species of Podurella, and a Buddhist bat. 

“ Well,” thought Tom, “ this is a very pretty quarrel, 
with a good deal to be said on both sides. But it is no 
business of mine.” 

And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, and 
had the original sow by the right ear; which you will 
never have, unless you be a baby, whether of the water, 
the land, or the air, matters not, provided you can only 
keep on continually being a baby. 

So the giant ran round after the people, and the people 
ran round after the giant, and they are running unto'this 
day for aught I know, or do not know ; and will run till 
either he, or they, or both, turn into little children. And 
then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore it must be 
true)— 

“ Jack shall have Gill 

Nought shall go ill 

The man shall have his mare again, and all go well.” 

Then Tom came to a very famous island, which was 
called, in the days of the great traveller Captain Gulliver, 
the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


277 


named it over again, the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads 
and no bodies. 

And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grumb¬ 
ling and grunting and growling and wailing and weeping 
and whining that he thought people must be ringing little 
pigs, or cropping puppies’ ears, or drowning kittens: but 
when he came nearer still, he began to hear words among 
the noise ; which was the Tomtoddies’ song which they 
sing morning and evening, and all night too, to their great 
idol Examination— 


“ I cand learn my lesson: the examiner's coming l ” 



And that was the only song 
which they knew. 

And when Tom got on 
shore the first thing he saw 
was a great pillar, on one 
side of which was in¬ 
scribed, “ Playthings 
not allowed here at 
which he was so 
shocked 


“ Tomtoddies.” 


that he would not stay to see what was written on the 
other side. Then he looked round for the people of the 
island : but instead of men, women, and children, he 
found nothing but turnips and radishes, beet and mangold 
wurzel, without a single green leaf among them, and half 



278 


The Water-Babies. 


of them burst and decayed, with toad-stools growing out 
of them. Those which were left began crying to Tom, in 
half a dozen different languages at once, and all of them 
badly spoken, “ I can’t learn my lesson; do come and 
help me ! ” And one cried, “ Can you show me how to 
extract this square root ? ” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the distance between a 
Lyrae and P Camelopardis ? ” 

And another, “ What is the latitude and longitude of 
Snooksville, in Noman’s County, Oregon, U. S. ? ” 

And another, “What was the name of Mutius Scaevola’s 
thirteenth cousin’s grandmother’s maid’s cat?” 

And another, “ How long would it take a school-inspec¬ 
tor of average activity to tumble head over heels from 
London to York ? ” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the name of a place 
that nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever happened, 
in a country which has not been discovered yet ? ” 

And another, “ Can you show me how to correct 
this hopelessly corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus 
Tabenniticus, on the cause why crocodiles have no 
tongues ?” 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would have 
thought they were all trying for tide-waiters’ places, or 
cornetcies in the heavy dragoons. 

“And what good on earth will it do you if I did tell 
you ? ” quoth Tom. 

Well, they didn’t know that: all they knew was the 
examiner was coming. 

Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nimble- 
comequick turnip you ever saw filling a hole in a crop of 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


2 79 


swedes, and it cried lo him, “Can you tell me anything at 
all about anything you like ?” 

“ About what ? ” says Tom. 

“ About anything you like; for as fast as I learn 
things I forget them again. So my mamma says that my 
intellect is not adapted for methodic science, and says 
that I must go in for general information.” 

Tom told him that he did not know general informa¬ 
tion, nor any officers in the army; only he had a friend 
once that went for a drummer : but he could tell him a 
great many strange things which he had seen in his 
travels. 

So he told him prettily enough, while the poor turnip 
listened very carefully; and the more he listened, the 
more he forgot, and the more water ran out of him. 

Tom thought he was crying : but it was only his poor 
brains running away, from being worked so hard; and as 
Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed down all over 
with juice, and split and shrank till nothing was left of 
him but rind and water ; whereat Tom ran away in a 
fright, for he thought he might be taken up for killing the 
turnip. 

But, on the contrary, the turnip’s parents were highly 
delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, and 
put up a long inscription over his tomb about his wonder¬ 
ful talents, early development, and unparalleled precocity. 
Were they not a foolish couple ? But there was a still 
more foolish couple next to them, who were beating a 
wretched little radish, no bigger than my thumb, for 
sullenness and obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never 
knew that the reason why it couldn’t learn or hardly even 



28 o 


The Water-Babies. 



speak was, that there was a great worm 
inside it eating out all its brains. But 
even they are no foolisher than some 
hundred score of papas and mammas, 
who fetch the rod when they ought to 
fetch a new toy, and send to the dark 
cupboard instead of to the doctor. 

Tom was so puzzled and frightened 
with all he saw, that he was longing to 
ask the meaning of it; and at last he 
stumbled over a respectable old stick 
lying half covered with earth. But a 
very stout and worthy stick it was, for it 
belonged to good Roger Ascham in old 
time, and had carved on its head King 
Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in his 
hand. 

“ You see,” said the stick, “there were 
as pretty little children once as you 
could wish to see, and might have been so still if they had 
been only left to grow up like human beings, and then 
handed over to me ; but their foolish fathers and mothers, 
instead of letting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, 
and get birds’ nests, and dance round the gooseberry 
bush, as little children should, kept them always at les¬ 
sons, working, working, working, learning week-day les¬ 
sons all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and 
weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly exam¬ 
inations every month, and yearly examinations every year, 
everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, 
and enough as good as a feast—-till their brains grew big, 


“A Respectable 
Old Stick. •’ 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 281 

and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed 
into turnips, with little but water inside ; and still their 
foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as 
they grow, lest they should have anything green about 
them.” 

“ Ah! ” said Tom, “ if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbe- 
doneby knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and 
balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them all as 
jolly as sand-boys.” 

“It would be no use,” said the stick. “They can’t 
play now, if they tried. Don’t you see how their legs 
have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by never 
taking any exercise, but sapping and moping always in 
the same place ? But here comes the Examiner-of-all- 
Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn you, or 
he will examine you and your dog into the bargain, and 
set him to examine all the other dogs, and you to examine 
all the other water-babies. There is no escaping out of 
his hands, for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and 
can go down chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, 
down-stairs, in my lady’s chamber, examining all little 
boys, and the little boys’ tutors likewise. But when he is 
thrashed—so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me 
—I shall have the thrashing of him : and if I don t lay it 
on with a will it’s a pity.” 

Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for he 
was somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of-all- 
Examiners, who came striding among the poor turnips, 
binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay¬ 
ing them on little children’s shoulders, like the Scribes 
and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with one 



282 


The Water-Babies. 


of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine 
house to live in, and so forth; which was more than the 
poor little turnips had. 

But when he got near, he looked so big and burly and 
dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be 
examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too. 
And really it was time; for the poor turnips, in their 
hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready 
for the Examiner, that they burst and popped by dozens 
all round him, till the place sounded like Aldershot on a 
field-day, and Tom thought he should be blown into the 
air, dog and all. 

As he went down to the shore he passed the poor 
turnip’s new tomb. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had 
taken away the epitaph about talents and precocity and 
development, and put up one of her own instead which 
Tom thought much more sensible :— 

“ Instruction sore long time I bore, 

And cramming was in vain ; 

Till heaven did please my woes to ease, 

With water on the brain! 

So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, 
singing 

“Farewell, Tomtoddies all; I thank my stars 
That nought I know save those three royal r’s 
Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick, 

Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick! 

Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet: but no 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


283 


more was John Bunyan, though he was as wise a man 
as you will meet in a month of Sundays. 

And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the 
folks were all heathens, and worshipped a howling ape. 

And there he found a little boy sitting in the middle of 
the road, and crying bitterly. 

“ What are you crying for ? ” said Tom. 

“Because I am not as frightened as I could wish to 
be.” 

“ Not frightened ? You are a queer little chap : but, if 
you want to be frightened, here goes—Boo ! ” 

“ Ah,” said the little boy, “ that is very kind of you ; 
but I don’t feel that it has made any impression.” 

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, 
fettle him over the head with a brick, or anything else 
whatsoever which would give him the slightest comfort. 

But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long 
words which he had heard other folk use, and which 
therefore, he thought were fit and proper to use himself; 
and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and sent off 
for the Powwow man immediately. And a very good- 
natured gentleman and lady they were, though they were 
heathens; and talked quite pleasantly to Tom about his 
travels, till the Powwow man arrived, with his thunder- 
box under his arm. 

And a well-fed, ill-favored gentleman he was, as ever 
served Her Majesty at Portland. Tom was a little 
frightened at first; for he thought it was Grimes. But he 
soon saw his mistake : for Grimes always looked a man 
in the face ; and this fellow never did. And when he 
spoke, it was fire and smoke; and when he sneezed, it 



284 


The Water-Babies. 


was squibs and crackers; and when he cried (which he 
did whenever it paid him), it was boiling pitch ; and some 
of it was sure to stick. 

“ Here we are again ! ” cried he, like the clown in a 
pantomime. “ So you can’t feel frightened, my little 
dear—eh? I’ll do that for you. I’ll make an impression 
on you ! Yah ! Boo ! Whirroo ! Hullabaloo ! ” 

And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder-box, 
yelled, shouted, raved* roared, stamped, and danced 
corrobory like any black fellow; and then he touched a 
spring in the thunder-box and out popped turnip-ghosts 
and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and spring- 
heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid din, 
clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little boy 
turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted right away. 

And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma were as 
much delighted as if they had found a gold mine; and 
fell down upon their knees before the Powwow man, and 
gave him a palanquin with a pole of solid silver and 
curtains of cloth of gold ; and carried him about in it on 
their own backs : but as soon as they had taken him up, 
the pole stuck to their shoulders, and they could not set 
him down any more, but carried him on willynilly, as 
Sinbad carried the old man of the sea : which was a 
pitiable sight to see ; for the father was a very brave 
officer, and wore two swords and a blue button ; and the 
mother was as pretty a lady as ever had pinched feet like 
a Chinese. But you see, they had chosen to do a foolish 
thing just once too often ; so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedone- 
byasyoudid, they had to go on doing it whether they chose 
or not, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. 



A Fairy Tale for a La7id-Baby. 


285 


Ah! don’t you wish that some one would go and con¬ 
vert those poor heathens, and teach them not to frighten 
their little children into fits? 

“ Now, then,” said the Powwow man to Tom, 
“ wouldn’t you like to be frightened, my little dear? For 
I can see plainly that you are a very wicked, naughty ? 
graceless, reprobate boy.” 

‘‘You’re another,” quoth Tom, very sturdily. And 
when the man ran at him, and cried “ Boo! ” Tom ran 
at him in return, and cried “ Boo ! ” likewise, right in his 
face, and set the little dog upon him ; and at his legs the 
dog went. 

At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned tail, 
thunderbox and all, with a “ Woof! ” like an old sow on 
the common; and ran for his life, screaming, “Help! 
thieves ! murder ! fire ! He is going to kill me ! I am a 
ruined man ! He will murder me ; and break, burn, and 
destroy my precious and invaluable thunderbox; and then 
you will have no more thunder-showers in the land. 
Help ! help ! help ! ” 

At which the papa and mamma and all the people of 
Oldwivesfabledom flew at Tom, shouting, “ Oh, the 
wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy! Beat 
him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn 
him ! ” and so forth : but luckily they had nothing to 
shoot, hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid all 
the killing-tackle out of the way a little while before ; so 
they could only pelt him with stones; and some of the 
stones went clean through him, and came out the other 
side. But he did not mind that a bit; for the holes closed 
up again as fast as they were made, because he was a 



286 


The Water-Babies. 


water-baby. However, he was very glad when he was safe 
out of the country, for the noise there made him all but 
deaf. 

Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leaveheav- 
enalone. And there the sun was drawing water out of 
the sea to make steam-threads, and the wind was twist¬ 
ing them up to make Cloud-patterns, till they had worked 
between them the loveliest wedding veil of Chantilly lace, 
and hung it up in their own Crystal Palace for any one to 
buy who could afford it; while the good old sea never 
grudged, for she knew they would pay her back honestly. 
So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all went well 
with the great steam-loom ; as is likely, considering—and 
considering—and considering— 

And at last, after innumerable adventures, each more 
wonderful than the last, he saw before him a huge build¬ 
ing, much bigger, and—what is most surprising—a little 
uglier than a certain new lunatic asylum, but not built 
quite of the same materials. None of it, at least—or, 
indeed, for aught that I ever saw, any part of any other 
building whatsoever—is cased with nine-inch brick inside 
and out, and filled up with rubble between the walls, in 
order that any gentleman who has been confined during 
Her Majesty’s pleasure may be unconfined during his own 
pleasure, and take a walk in the neighboring park to 
improve his spirits, after an hour’s light and wholesome 
labor with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his iron 
bedstead. No. The walls of this building were built on 
an entirely different principle, which need not be 
described, as it has not yet been discovered. 

Tom walked towards this great building, wondering 




The Sun was Drawing Water Get of thf Sea to Make Steam-Threads. 


0 









288 


The Water-Babies. 



what it was, and having a strange fancy that he might 
find Mr. Grimes inside it, till he saw running toward him, 

and shouting 
“ stop ! ” three 
or four people, 
who, when they 
came nearer, 
were nothing 


else than police- 
men’s trun¬ 
cheons, running 
along without 
legs or arms. 

Tom was not 
astonished. He 
was long past 
that. v Besides, 
he had seen the 
naviculae. in the 
water move no¬ 
body knows how, 
a hundred times, 
without arms, or 
legs, or anything 
to stand in their 
stead. Neither 

was he fright- 

“The Truncheon Looked at It in the AnAr i . f rvr 

Oddest Fashion.” eneci ’ Ior lie 

had been doing 


no harm. 


So he stopped; and, when the foremost truncheon 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


289 


came up and asked his business, he showed Mother 
Carey’s pass; and the truncheon looked at it in the 
oddest fashion ; for he had one eye in the middle of his 
upper end, so that when he looked at anything, being 
quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke himself, till 
it was a wonder why he did not tumble over; but, being 
quite full of the spirit of justice (as all policemen, and 
their truncheons, ought to be), he was always in a posi¬ 
tion of stable equilibrium, whichever way he put himself. 

“ All right—pass on,” said he at last. And then he 
added: “I had better go with you, young man.” And 
Tom had no objection, for such company was both 
respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its thong 
neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up—for 
the thong had got loose in running—and marched on by 
Tom’s side. 

“Why have you no policeman to carry you ?” asked 
Tom, after a while. 

“ Because we are not like those clumsy-made trun¬ 
cheons in the land-world, which cannot go without having 
a whole man to carry them about. We do our own work 
for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who 
should not.” 

“ Then why have you a thong to your handle ? ” asked 

Tom. 

“ To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off 


duty.” 

Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till 
they came up to the great iron door of the prison. And 
there the truncheon knocked twice, with its own head. 

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremen- 





290 


The Water-Babies . 



clous old brass blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with 
slugs, who was the porter; and Tom started back a little 

at the sight of him. 

“What case is this ? ” 
he asked in a deep 
voice, out of his broad 
bell mouth. 

“ If you please, sir, 
it is no case; only a 
young gentleman from 
her ladyship, who wants 
to see Grimes, the mas¬ 
ter-sweep.” 

“ Grimes ? ” said the 
blunderbuss. And he 
pulled in his muzzle, 
perhaps to look over 
his prison-lists. 

“ Grimes is up chim¬ 
ney No. 345,” he said 
from inside. “ So the 
young gentleman had 
better go on to the 
roof.” 

Tom looked up at the 
enormous wall, which 
seemed at least ninety 
miles high, and won¬ 
dered how he should ever get up: but, when he hinted 
that to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. 
For it whisked round, and gave him such a shove behind 


Out Looked a Tremendous Old 
Brass Blunderbuss.” 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


291 


as sent him up to the roof in no time, with his little dog 
under his arm. 

And there he walked along the leads, till he met 
another truncheon, and told him his errand. 

“ Very good,” it said. “ Come along : but it will be of 
no use. He is the most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul- 
mouthed fellow I have in charge; and thinks about 
nothing but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here, 
of course.” 

So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty 
they were, and Tom thought the chimneys must want 
sweeping very much. But he was surprised to see that 
the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them in* the 
least. Neither did the live coals, which were lying about 
in plenty, burn him ; for, being a water-baby, his radical 
humors were of a moist and cold nature, as you may read 
at large in Lemnius, Cardan, Van Helmont, and other 
gentlemen, who knew as much as they could, and no man 
can know more. 

And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the 
top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck poor 
Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that Tom 
could hardly bear to look at him. And in his mouth was 
a pipe ; but it was not a-light; though he was pulling at it 
with all his might. 

“Attention, Mr. Grimes,” said the truncheon; “here is 
a gentleman come to see you.” 

But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept grum¬ 
bling, “ My pipe won’t draw. My pipe won’t draw.” 

“Keep a civil tongue, and attend!” said the trun¬ 
cheon ; and popped up just like Punch, hitting Grimes such 




The Water-Babies. 


292 

a crack over the head with itself, that his brains rattled 
inside like a dried walnut in its shell. He tried to get 



“Poor Mr. Grimes.” 


his hands out, and rub the place : but he could not, for 
they were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he was forced 
to attend. 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2 9 3 


“Hey!” he said, “why, it’s Tom! I suppose you 
have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little atomy ? ” 

Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to help 
him. 

“ I don’t want anything except beer, and that I can’t 
get; and a light to this bothering pipe, and that I can’t 
get either.” 

“ I’ll get you one,” said Tom ; and he took up a live 
coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to Grimes’ 
pipe: but it went out instantly. 

“It’s no use,” said the truncheon, leaning itself up 
against the chimney and looking on. “ I tell you, it is no 
use. His heart is so cold that it freezes everything that 
comes near him. You will see that presently, plain 
enough.” 

“ Oh, of course, it’s my fault. Everything’s always 
my fault,” said Grimes. “ Now don’t go to hit me again ” 
(for the truncheon started upright, and looked very 
wicked) ; “you know, if my arms were only free, you 
daren’t hit me then.” 

The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and 
took no notice of the personal insult, like a well-trained 
policeman as it was, though he was ready enough to 
avenge any transgression against morality or order. 

“ But can’t I help you in any other way l Can’t I 
help you to get out of this chimney ? ” said Tom. 

“ No,” interposed the truncheon ; “ he has come to the 
place where everybody must help themselves; and he will 
find it out, I hope, before he has done with me.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Grimes, “ of course it’s me. Did I 
ask to be brought here into the prison ? Did I ask to be 





294 


The Water-Babies. 


set to sweep your foul chimneys ? Did I ask to have 
lighted straw put under me to make me go up ? Did I 
ask to stick fast in the very first chimney of all, because 
it was so shamefully clogged up with soot ? Did I ask to 
stay here—I don’t know how long—a hundred years, I 
do believe, and never get my pipe, nor my beer, nor 
nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man ? ” 

“ No,” answered a solemn voice behind. “ No more 
did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same 
way.” 

It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the 
truncheon saw her, it started bolt upright—Attention !— 
and made such a low bow, that if it had not been full of 
the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on its end, and 
probably hurt its one eye. And Tom made his bow too. 

“ Oh, ma’am,” he said, “don’t think about me; that’s 
all past and gone, and good times and bad times and all 
times pass over. But may not I help poor Mr. Grimes ? 
Mayn’t I try and get some of these bricks away, that he 
may move his arms ? ” 

“ You may try, of course,” she said. 

So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he could 
not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. Grimes’ 
face : but the soot would not come off. 

“Oh, dear!” he said. “I have come all this way, 
through all these terrible places, to help you, and now I 
am of no use at all.” 

“You had best leave me alone,” said Grimes; “you 
are a good-natured forgiving little chap, and that’s truth; 
but you’d best be off. The hail’s coming on soon, and it 
will beat the eyes out of your little head.” 



A Fairy 1'ale for a Land-Baby. 


2 95 


What hail ? ” 

“ Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till it 
comes close to me, it’s like so much warm rain : but then 
it turns to hail over my head, and knocks me about like 
small shot.” 

“ That hail will never come any more,” said the strange 
lady. “ I have told you before what it was. It was your 
mother’s tears, those which she shed when she prayed for 
you by her bedside; but your cold heart froze it into hail. 
But she is gone to heaven now, and will weep no more for 
her graceless son.” 

Then Grimes was silent awhile ; and then he looked 
very sad. 

“ So my old mother’s gone, and I never there to speak 
to her! Ah! a good woman she was, =and might have 
been a happy one, in her little school there in Vendale, if 
it hadn’t been for me and my bad ways.” 

" Did she keep the school in Vendale ? ” asked Tom. 
And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to her 
house, and how she could not abide the sight of a chim¬ 
ney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how he turned 
into a water-baby. 

“ Ah ! ” said Grimes, “ good reason she had to hate the 
sight of a chimney-sweep. I ran away from her and took 
up with the sweeps, and never let her know where I was, 
nor sent her a penny to help her, and now it’s too late— 
too late ! ” said Mr. Grimes. 

And he began crying and blubbering like a great baby, 
till his pipe dropped out of his mouth, and broke all to bits. 

“ Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, 
to see the clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and the yew- 



296 


The Water-Babies. 


hedge, how different I would go on! But it’s too late 
now. So you go along, you kind little chap, and don’t 
stand to look at a man crying, that’s old enough to be 
your father, and never feared the face of man, nor of 
worse neither. But I’m beat now, and beat I must be. 
I’ve made my bed, and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, 
and foul I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once ; and 
little I heeded it. It’s all my own fault: but it’s too late.” 
And he cried so bitterly that Tom began crying too. 

“ Never too late,” said the fairy, in such a strange soft 
new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she was so 
beautiful for the moment, that Tom half fancied she was 
her sister. 

No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes 
cried and blubbered on, his own tears did what his 
mother’s could not do, and Tom’s could not do, and 
nobody’s on earth could do for him ; for they washed the 
soot off his face and off his clothes; and then they 
washed the mortar away from between the bricks; and 
the chimney crumbled down ; and Grimes began to get 
out of it. 

Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit fc:na on 
the crown a tremendous thump, and drive him down 
again like a cork into a bottle. But the strange lady put 
it aside. 

“ Will you obey me if I give you a chance ? ” 

“ As you please, ma’am. You’re stronger than me— 
that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too well 
also. And, as for being my own master, I’ve fared ill 
enough with that as yet. So whatever your ladyship 
pleases to order me; for I’m beat, and that’s the truth.” 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


297 


“ Be it so then—you may come out. But remember, 
disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go.” 

“I beg pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you that 
I know of. I never had the honor of setting eyes upon 
you till I came to these ugly quarters.” 

“ Never saw me ? Who said to you, Those that will be 
foul, foul they will be ? ” 

Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for the 
voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day 
that they went out together to Harthover. “ I gave you 
your warning then : but you gave it yourself a thousand 
times before and since. Every bad word that you said 
—every cruel and mean thing that you did—every time 
that you got tipsy—every day that you went dirty—you 
were disobeying me, whether you knew it or not.” 

“ If I’d only known, ma’am-” 

“ You knew well enough that you were disobeying 
something, though you did not know it was me. But 
come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be your 
last.” 

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, if it 



The Crater of Etna.' 







298 


The Water-Babies. 


had not been for the scars on his face, he looked as clean 
and respectable as a master-sweep need look. 

“Take him away,” said she to the truncheon, “ and 
give him his ticket-of-leave.” 

“ And what is he to do, ma’am ? ” 

“ Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will find 
some very steady men working out their time there, who 
will teach him his business : but mind, if that crater gets 
choked again, and there is an earthquake in consequence, 
bring them all to me, and I shall investigate the case very 
severely.” 

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking as 
meek as a drowned worm. 

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweeping 
the crater of Etna to this very day. 

“ And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “ your work here is 
done. You may as well go back again.” 

“ I should be glad enough to go,” said Tom, “ but how 
am I to get up that great hole again, now the steam has 
stopped blowing ? ” 

“ I will take you up the backstairs : but I must band¬ 
age your eyes first; for I never allow anybody to see 
those backstairs of mine.” 

“ I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, 
ma’am, if you bid me not.” 

“Aha! So you think, my little man. But you would 
soon forget your promise if you got back into the land- 
world. For, if people only once found out that you had 
been up my backstairs, you would have all the fine ladies 
kneeling to you, and the rich men emptying their purses 
before you, and statesmen offering you place and power; 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


2 99 


and young and old, rich and poor, crying to you, ‘ Only 
tells us the great backstairs secret, and we will be your 
slaves ; we will make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, 
archbishop, pope, if you like—only tell us the secret of 
the backstairs. For thousands of years we have been 
paying, and petting, and obeying, and worshipping quacks 
who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and could 
smuggle us up them; and in spite of all our disappoint¬ 
ments, we will honor, and glorify, and adore, and beatify, 
and translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the 
chance of your knowing something about the back¬ 
stairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even 
if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry— 


4 Oh , backstairs , 
precious backstairs, 
invaluable backstairs, 
requisite backstairs, 
necessary backstairs, 
good-natured backstairs, 
cosmopolitan backstairs, 
comprehensive backstairs, 
accommodating backstairs , 
well-bred backstairs, 
commercial backstairs , 
economical backstairs, 
practical backstairs, 
logical backstairs, 
deductive backstairs, 


comfortable backstairs, 
humane backstairs, 
reasonable backstairs, 
long-sought backstairs , 
coveted backstairs , 
aristocratic backstairs , 
respectable backstairs , 
gentlemanlike backstairs, 
ladylike backstairs, 
orthodox backstairs, 
probable backstairs , 
c?‘edible backstairs, 
demonstrable backstairs , 
irrefragable backstairs, 


potent backstairs, 
qll-but-omnipotent backstairs, &>c. 



3 °° 


The Water-Babies. 


Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and 
from the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid! ’ Do not 
you think that you would be a little tempted then to tell 
what you know, laddie ? ” 

Tom thought so certainly. “ But why do they want so 
to know about the backstairs ? ” asked he, being a little 
frightened at the long words, and not understanding 
them the least; as, indeed, he was not meant to do, or 
you either. 

“ That I shall not tell you. I never put things into 
little folks’ heads which are but too likely to come there 
of themselves. So come—now I must bandage your 
eyes.” So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one 
hand, and with the other she took it off. 

“ Now,” she said, “ you are safe up the stairs.” Tom 
opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth too ; for he 
had not, as he thought, moved a single step, but, when he 
looked round him, there could be no doubt that he was 
safe up the backstairs, whatsoever they may be, which no 
man is going to tell you, for the plain reason that no man 
knows. 

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, 
high and sharp against the rosy dawn ; and St. Brandan’s 
Isle reflected double in the still broad silver sea. The 
wind sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang 
among the caves : the sea-birds sang as they streamed 
out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built 
among the boughs; and the air was so full of song that 
it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they slumbered 
in the shade ; and they moved their good old lips, and 
sang their morning hymn amid their dreams. But among 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


3 °i 


all the songs one came across the water more sweet and 
clear than all; for it was the song of a young girl’s 
voice. 

And what was the song which she sang ? Ah, my 
little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too 
young to understand it. But have patience, and keep 
your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will 
learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any 
man to teach you. 

And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a rock 
the most graceful creature that ever was seen, looking 
down, with her chin upon her hand, and paddling with 
her feet in the water. And when they came to her she 
looked up, and behold it was Elbe. 

“ Oh, Miss Ellie,” said he, “ how you are grown ! ” 

“ Oh, Tom,” said she, “ how you are grown too ! ” 

And no wonder; they were both quite grown up—he 
into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman. 



“ St. Brandan’s Isle.” 










’ 




A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 303 

“ Perhaps I may be grown,” she said. “ I have had time 
enough ; for I have been sitting here waiting for you many 
a hundred years, till I thought you were never coming.” 

“ Many a hundred years ? ” thought Tom ; but he had 
seen so much in his travels that he had quite given up 
being astonished ; and, indeed, he could think of nothing 
but Elbe. So he stood and looked at Elbe, and Elbe 
looked at him ; and they liked the employment so much 
that they stood and looked for seven years more, and 
neither spoke nor stirred. 

At last they heard the fairy say : “ Attention, children. 
Are you never going to look at me again ? ” 

“ We have been looking at you all this while,” they 
said. And so they thought they had been. 

“Then look at me once more,” said she. 

They looked—and both of them cried out at once, 
“ Oh, who are you, after all ? ” 

“ You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.” 

“ No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ; but you 
are grown quite beautiful now ! ” 

“ To you,” said the fairy. “ But look again.” 

“ You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, 
solemn voice ; for he had found out something which 
made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than 
all that he had ever seen. 

“ But you are grown quite young again.” 

“ To you,” said the fairy. “ Look again.” 

“ You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went 
to Harthover ! ” 

And when they looked she was neither of them, and 
yet all of them at once. 



304 


The Water-Babies. 


“ My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to 
see it there.” 

And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and 
they changed again and again into every hue, as the light 
changes in a diamond. 

“ Now read my name,” said she, at last. 

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, 
blazing light: but the children could not read her 
name; for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their 
hands. 

“ Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling; 
and then she turned to Elbe. 

“ You may take him home with you now on Sundays, 
Elbe. He has won his spurs in the great battle, and 
become fit to go with you and be a man ; because he has 
done the thing he did not like.” 

So Tom went home with Elbe on Sundays, and some¬ 
times on week-days, too; and he is now a great man of 
science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, and 
electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth ; and 
knows everything about everything, except why a hen’s 
egg don’t turn into a crocodile, and two or three other 
little things which no one will know till the coming of 
the Cocqcigrues. And all this from what he learnt when 
he was a water-baby, underneath the sea. 

“ And of course Tom married Elbe ? ” 

My dear child, what a silly notion ! Don’t you know 
that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of 
a prince or a princess ? 

“ And Tom’s dog ? ” 

Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for the 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. 


3°5 


old dog-star was so worn out by the last three hot sum¬ 
mers that there have been no dog-days since ; so that 
they had to take him down and put Tom’s dog up in his 
place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep clean, we may 
hope for some warm weather this year. And that is the 
end of my story. 



3o 6 


The Water-Bahies. 


MORAL. 

* 

Atfd now, my dear little man, what should we learn 
from this parable ? 

We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am 
not exactly sure which: but one thing, at least, we may 
learn, and that is this—when we see efts in the pond, never 
to throw stones at them, or catch them with crooked pins, 
or put them into vivariums with sticklebacks, that the stickle¬ 
backs may prick them in their poor little stomachs, and 
make them jump out of the glass into somebody's work-box, 
and so come to a bad end. For these efts are nothing else 
but the water-babies who are stupid and dirty, and ivill 
not learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and, 
therefore (as comparative anatomists will tell you fifty years 
hence, though they are not learned enough to tell you now), 
their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains 
grow small, and their tails grow long, and they lose all their 
ribs (which I am sure you would not like to do), and their 
skins grow dirty and spotted, and they never get into the 
clear rivers, much less into the great wide sea, but hang 
about in dirty ponds, and live in the mud, and eat worms, 
as they deserve to do. 


APR -4 I9<i5 



A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby . 


3°7 


But that is no reason why you should ill-use them : but 
only why you should pity them, and be kind to them, and 
hope that some day they will wake up, and be ashamed of 
their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and try to amend, and 
become something better once more. For, perhaps, if they do 
so, then after 379,423 years, nine months, thirteen days, two 
hours, and twenty-one minutes (_for aught that appears to 
the contrary), if they work very hard and wash very hard 
all that time, their brains may grow bigger, and their jaws 
grow smaller, and their ribs come back, and their tailsgwither 
off, and they will turn into water-babies again, and perhaps 
after that into land-babies; and after that perhaps into 
grown men. 

You know they won’t l Very well, I daresay you know 
best. But you see, some folks have a great liking for those 
poor little efts. They never did anybody any harm, or could 
if they tried ; and their only fault is, that they do no good — 
any more than some thousands of their betters. But what 
with ducks, and what with pike, and what with sticklebacks, 
and what with water-beetles, andl what with naughty boys, 
they are “ sae sair hadden doun,” as the Scotsmen say, that 
it is a wonder how they live; and some folks can’t help 
hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they may have 
another chance, to make things fair and even, somewhere, 
somewhen, somehow. 

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God 
that you have plenty of cold water to wash in ; and wash in 
it too, like a true Englishman. And then, if my story is 
not true, something better is ; and if I am not quite right, 
still you will be, as long as you stick to hard work and cold 
water. 




3°8 


The Water-Babies . • 


But remember always, I told you at first, that this is 
all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, 
you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true. 




















































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